


Curiosity's Endeavors

by amonkeysue



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Mummy (1999), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Minor Character Death, The Mummy AU, that is important to the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-14 08:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4558539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonkeysue/pseuds/amonkeysue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History and mythology are not entirely separate, as a trip to the city of Hamunaptra proves to Darcy, Jane, and their new friend Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Science: The Great Motivator

1925\. Egypt.

Treasure and renown lay beneath the rolling seas of sand, awaiting anyone brave and canny enough to search through the layers of history and find the secrets hidden within.

“Jane, there is nothing here!” Darcy groaned and leaned forward to set her forehead against the library table, ignoring the side of a scroll brushing against her cheek.

Her friend continued reading, seemingly not having heard the complaint.

Not exactly an uncommon occurrence.

Darcy kept her head down. “Jane,” she began to repeat, her voice muffled by the table.

“We’re getting somewhere. Look at this.” Jane pushed the scroll she had been intensely studying under Darcy’s nose so that she would raise her head. “This talks about the quadrant! We’re heading in the right direction!”

She had a triumphant smile.

Earlier in the year, Edwin Hubble had resolved Cephoid variables in the Andromeda nebula. The astronomical community was taking the news of a separate galaxy in stride. Jane had shown a select few others her own work also proving the Andromeda nebula was in fact the Andromeda galaxy, and predating Hubble’s.

For which they had scoffed at her, refusing to acknowledge that she had found evidences first and trying to tear apart her reasoning. It had been enough to encourage Jane to tackle a new concept to prove.  
By the presence of other galaxies, it would make sense for there to be other other forms of intelligent life scattered among them. Intelligent life would find a way to each other. In Jane’s theory, travel would occur through bridges spanning through space.

Her initial research had led her to the discovery of a rumored Egyptian astrolabic quadrant from some 600 years earlier, at least. It was said to unlock the secrets of the heavens.

A determined Jane had instantly set for Egypt, with Darcy insistently accompanying her, both out of concern for her friend getting too caught up in the search for the quadrant and an abiding curiosity for a firsthand look at Egyptian culture and history.

She also desperately wanted to see her friend best the rest of the scientific community.

Darcy read the scroll passage Jane had pointed out and sighed. “We already knew everything this says.”

Jane stood so she could point a line down from where Darcy had read. “There.”

It took a moment for what the scroll said to sink in. “You… we think the quadrant is in Hamunaptra now? The supposed City of the Dead that may or may not be completely fictional?”

“I think there have been enough stories about Hamunaptra for us to have reasonable belief in it,” Jane explained while clearing aside excess scrolls and books from the table.

Darcy choked back a guffaw. “The Greeks had plenty of stories about Mount Olympus, but that doesn’t mean it’s real.”

“Do you believe that the quadrant is real?”

She frowned. “That’s not-.”

Jane cut Darcy off. “If you haven’t just been trying to appease my interests this whole time we’ve been here, you believe that the quadrant exists.” She again pointed to the passage on the scroll. “Yes, this says what we already know, and it has a location. It doesn’t seem ridiculous for Hamunaptra to be real if everything else is true.”

The fervent light shining in Jane’s eyes told Darcy everything she could have asked about Jane’s own beliefs.

Finding Hamunaptra appealed to her interests too, even if she wouldn’t come out and say it.

She methodically rolled the scroll together and handed it back to Jane. “How do we find Hamunaptra? More importantly, how do we, two women in this day and age, safely get to Hamunaptra?”

Jane’s brow furrowed. “We barely realized we need to go to Hamunaptra. Our travel plans are forming.”

“That is hardly an answer.”

“We find a man willing to travel with us while letting us lead the way then.”

Darcy made a circular gesture with her hand. “I doubt someone we’ll trust that easily will be easy to come by.”

“I know someone who can help,” Jane replied. She rested a hand on the stack of scrolls and books she had made. “We had better reshelf these first though, before Dr. Bey can try and ban us from the library again.”

Darcy didn’t need any extra reminders.

\--

Jane’s contact was none other than the highly rumored Natasha Romanoff. Depending on who you listened to, she was a cold hearted killer, a local vigilante, or a princess from some distant small kingdom, on the run when she didn’t agree with a choice of suitor.

Darcy didn’t believe any of the rumors, but she also had no idea how Jane had run into the woman, and her friend wasn’t telling as she led the way to a small corner restaurant.

A brown-blonde haired man greeted them with a smile just inside the doors. “How may I help you two ladies?”

“We need to talk to Natasha.”

The man maintained his smile. “You have perfect timing. She’s at the back table.” He pointed out the right corner when he saw Darcy look the other way.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll bring out some water for you.” The man walked away as Jane and Darcy headed for Natasha’s table.

The redhead looked up as she heard the two women approach. “Well hello.”

Jane quickly made introductions between Natasha and Darcy before the man came over with water and asked Natasha if she wanted anything.

“No thank you, Clint.”

He smiled and walked off again.

Darcy and Jane sat across the table from Natasha.

“I have a feeling you didn’t stop by just to introduce your friend to me, Jane.”

“I need your help. Darcy and I need someone to travel with us to Hamunaptra.”

Silence held for several moments.

“For safety,” Darcy quietly tacked on.

Natasha gave Jane a measured glance and leaned across the table. “You’re really telling me that you’re going to Hamunaptra?”

“Yes.” Jane enthusiastically nodded for emphasis. She tried to imitate Natasha’s smooth lean, stopping when she accidentally bumped her elbow too hard against the table. 

Darcy grabbed her glass off the table to avoid the possibility of it spilling as collateral damage.

Holding back a smirk, Natasha said, “My associates are currently busy elsewhere, otherwise I’d see if one of them could go with you.” She quickly continued before Jane could say anything. “I still might be able to help. James Barnes- he prefers to go by Bucky- is currently in town and looking for somewhere to go. I’m certain he’d be happy to help the both of you in your travels.” Natasha quirked a brow. “There’s even a rumor he’s been to Hamunaptra before,” she wryly remarked, a twinkle in her eye.

“Do you trust him?” Darcy quickly asked. 

Jane curiously looked over at Darcy.

“I wouldn’t have suggested him if I didn’t.”

She cautiously set her glass back down on the table. “A woman can never be too careful.”

Disappointed surprise briefly flitted across Natasha’s expression before she offered a reassuring smile to Darcy. “I know. I only recommend to be as helpful as possible.”

Jane cleared her throat and nearly rested her elbow on the table, retracting it at the last second when she saw Darcy reach for her glass out of her peripheral. “Where can we find Mr. Barnes?”

“When are you leaving for the city?”

Darcy expectantly looked at Jane, while she looked back in hopes that her friend had an answer. 

“It will take us a few days to gather everything we’ll need,” Jane slowly said.

Natasha nodded. “If you can come back here tomorrow night, I can arrange for Mr. Barnes to meet you here, and then you can work out the rest of your arrangement with him once you’ve laid out more of those details. If that’s alright.”

“That would be excellent.”

“If you do need any assistance in preparing, talk to Maria,” Natasha suggested, “She would be happy to help.”

“I will,” Jane promised. She pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “Thank you, Natasha.”

Darcy stood after Jane. Natasha followed suit.

“I’ll see you here tomorrow.” She winked at Darcy. “Help to keep her on track as you get ready. You know how she can get when she’s distracted.”

The comment elicited a laugh from Darcy. “I believe I can manage that.”

Natasha wished them safe travel back to their lodgings.

\--

He stood to greet them. “Hello.” He rested a hand on a gun holster off his hip. “James Buchanan Barnes, but you can call me Bucky. Natasha tells me you’re looking for someone to help you to Hamunaptra?”

While Jane took the opportunity to lean around Bucky and glare at Natasha for telling him the biggest detail before she could, Darcy offered their introductions, first gesturing to herself. “Darcy Lewis, and this is Jane Foster. You do know about Hamunaptra?”

Bucky grimly chuckled. “Considering that I have been to the city, yes, I know about it.”

He let his hand slide off the holster for a more casual stance.

Jane instantly refocused from Natasha to Bucky. “You’ve actually been inside the city!” she eagerly questioned, taking a half step towards him.

“I don’t know that I would call it so much of a city anymore.”

“Still!”

As Darcy moved to sit down at the table, Jane and Bucky did the same.

“I trust that you can work out your own business?” Natasha asked, looking beyond the trio to the door, “If you don’t need me to be present, I would like to excuse myself for a little while.”

“We can take care of this,” Jane reassured. 

Under the table, she knocked her knee into Darcy’s to divert her attention from discreetly craning her head back towards the door.

‘Ow,’ Darcy mouthed.

“If you do need anything from me, talk to Clint.”

“We will,” Jane and Bucky said in sync.

Natasha nodded and headed for the door.

“I was only told that you’re heading to Hamunaptra. If we’re to be traveling together and I’m supposed to be a form of protection, might I ask what you’re looking for?” Bucky’s gaze flitted from Darcy to Jane as the latter shifted and clasped her hand together.

After a second, she slowly asked, “How familiar are you with astronomy?”

“The stars are a wonderful sight and I can use ‘em for directions, but I’m not familiar with their intricacies.”

Jane nodded. “All of my discoveries have been ignored by my scientific peers, and I need something to prove my latest theory. An astrolabic quadrant is somewhere in Hamunaptra, and every resource I’ve looked at says it would lead to the evidences I need.” As she spoke, she determinedly sat a little taller and didn’t twitch as Bucky evenly stared at her.

He sighed and looked at the table. “You’re lucky you knew Natasha so she could refer you to me.”

“Suspicious,” Darcy blurted out.

“Miss Lewis—“

She interjected, “You can call me Darcy, please.”

Unperturbed, Bucky continued. “Darcy, I believe there’s good reason you don’t hear too many stories about Hamunaptra. There is something dangerous beneath the sand that I wouldn’t want to disturb.” Bucky put an elbow on the table. “Even so, I can guide you to avoid the prospect of running into anything undesirable.”

“We are _not_ going to unearth anything other than the quadrant,” Jane tightly said. Before Darcy could say anything, she cut her off, “And if we should run into human treasure hunters or some other such undesirable addition, that is part of why you’re escorting us, Mr. Barnes.”

“Speaking of which, we have yet to formulate the details.”

“How soon do you believe we can leave?”

“How much money are you willing to put out as expedition funding?”

Jane was tempted to smile. “You may rest easy knowing that money will not be a problem. Tell me what we need and it will be arranged as time allows.”

There were certain advantages to familial wealth and being the sole heir.

“We’ll need plenty of water and food. I’d suggest camels, unless if you’re really inclined to try it on foot.”

Darcy softly guffawed. “Camels will be fine.”

“We’ll need clothing better suited for desert travel?” Jane guessed before she could reflect too much on her own opinion of camels. She would ride an alligator to Hamunaptra so long as it meant she got to the city.

Bucky nodded at her. “It should only take a few days to get this all arranged. Does that timetable work for you?”

Leaning forward from behind Jane to better look at Bucky, Darcy nodded.

“It sounds excellent.” Jane crossed her arms on the table. “Would you be willing to meet us at our lodgings tomorrow to help us figure where to go and the specific numbers of what we need?”

“Miss Foster, Mi- Darcy,” Bucky smoothly corrected before she could, “I would be happy to.”

Jane broadly smiled. They were heading to Hamunaptra.


	2. A Winning Bet

In the ideal world, traveling to the acclaimed City of the Dead would go smoothly.

Jane was intensely thankful that the only hitch was Darcy’s seemingly continual stream of questions to Bucky.

They ranged from the out of the blue (“How familiar are you with hieroglyphs?”) to the interesting (“What brought you to Egypt?”) to the very carefully thought out and hard-hitting (“Why have you previously been to Hamunaptra, and why do you strongly suspect a dangerous something is hidden there?”).

He did not offer Darcy a direct answer, instead completely skirting around the question by telling her about just one of the many myths surrounding Hamunaptra. Even repeating the question with a purposeful pout landed Darcy nothing substantial in reply.

She was determined to find out, in time, she pointedly told Jane that night. He would crack eventually, if she had anything to say about it. A Lewis never gave up when they wanted information.

Jane laughed and followed Darcy’s gaze to where Bucky was checking the edges of their campsite, his back to them.

“You may want information, but I, in my field of friend expertise, would guess that your curiosity stems both from wanting to know enough about him to be friendly and you being enamored.” She mischievously whispered the end of the sentence while slowly leaning against Darcy’s side, unable to keep from breaking out into a grin as Darcy lightly shoved her off.

“You are not an expert!”

“Considering I only said that you were enamored, and thus like having him around, you are absolutely proving a different possible meaning to be true.”

“Jane!” Darcy groaned before finally looking away from Bucky’s back to her friend.

“Are you going to tell me I’m correct?”

She shook her head. “You are reading far too much into things.”

“I tell what I see.” Jane scooted herself and her pack away from Darcy’s halfhearted arm fling in her direction. “Though we’re both very curious, try asking him a bit more about himself rather than his experience with Hamunaptra. I sit here certain he would be more enthusiastic to reply in that vein of conversation.”

A camel huffed at their commotion.

Darcy started to say, “I don’t think,” and abruptly cut off midsentence as Bucky turned and started back towards them. “And that is how we think the ancient Egyptians used Thebes,” she said as if she were finishing telling Jane some fascinating tidbit of information.

Bucky settled beside the two women, sitting only a couple feet away from Darcy with one knee propped up, his back against his pack. 

In light of their discussion, Jane was very much amused at the positioning, intentional or not.

He adjusted his holster for a better sitting position. “As best as I can tell, we’re going as expected.”

Knowing full well Bucky was likely not paying direct attention to her, Jane nodded and shifted how she was settled on her pack. “I don’t see many landmarks out here.”

“I figure it more as a matter of distance than basing off the landscape,” Bucky replied while rolling his shoulders back and flattening his bent leg.

“No judging from the stars?” Darcy made a disappointed clucking sound and shook her head.

“Perhaps a bit of both,” he consented before winking at her. “Except I’m better at perceiving the distance than judging the alignment of the stars in accordance to wherever I’m at in the desert.”

Darcy looked up at the spiral of stars appearing in the growing darkness for a moment and laughed. “I see your point.”

The camel nearest to Jane opted to look away from the noisy human trio and set its head down.

“I’m thinkin’ the camels have the right idea,” Bucky murmured.

Jane yawned. 

“There’s your proof,” Darcy ruefully said, holding back a yawn of her own. She stood so she could extend her pack’s sleeping roll, surprised at how tired she felt just by realizing it was time to finally sleep. Camel travel may not have been as intensive as walking the same distance, but the sun had a tendency to make anything in the desert far more difficult than was desired.

To either side of her, Bucky and Jane repeated her motions of spreading out their sleeping rolls and settling inside.

“If you see or feel any scorpions, tell me, especially if you’re stung,” he warned before going quiet.

Jane nervously wriggled inside her roll before deciding she was blissfully scorpion free. 

Sleepily, Darcy muttered, “You will not get attacked by a scorpion.”

“You cannot promise that.”

“I can make a fair guess.”

“Neither of you are going to get any sleep if you don’t stop arguing,” Bucky loudly said.

Darcy and Jane obliged the request for silence.

\--

Sand.

Sand.

Even more sand.

Darcy had stopped with her Questions for Bucky to focus on how dull the landscape was.

“We climb up one sand dune, go down, head up another, only to repeat the whole process an innumerable amount of times in a day’s worth of travel. There is no redeeming factor other than our end destination, but even then we will have to head back across the very same sand dunes,” she complained.

Jane coughed into her hand, careful to not distract her camel in the motion. “Perhaps you are looking at it the wrong way.”

“There is more to each dune,” Bucky agreed, bouncing off of Jane’s comment, “We’re up on camel back, so it is more difficult to see what is happening in the sand. It shifts, it has a variety of colors and grains. Occasionally you’re lucky enough to spot a desert creature hiding in the shade under a rare rock. There are plenty of interesting things in the sand, if you give it a chance.”

Drily, Darcy replied, “The key point is that we are traveling on camel back.”

He clicked his tongue. “If nothing else, consider this: if a sandstorm starts brewing in the distance, we’ll see it coming from miles away.”

Against her attempts to stop, Jane’s camel hurried over the ridge of the dune without any visual or audible reason.

“Jane?” Darcy immediately asked in surprised concern. 

She and Bucky urged their camels forward to follow, albeit at a slower pace than Jane’s had gone.

“This could be interesting,” Bucky muttered to himself as he cleared the top of the dune and saw what lay on the other side.

Jane’s camel had barely stopped down the side of the dune as his rider surveyed the other group traveling in front of them, a good eight men milling about on their own camels. They were also loaded up for an expedition. A man who was, presumably, their guide, and several other men from the group were standing around a camel laying on its side.

Darcy directed her camel to stand alongside Bucky’s. “Do you happen to know who they are?”

“Fellow travelers. They are likely also on their way to Hamunaptra, or terribly lost.”

“Wonderful,” she exhaled.

“Thoughts?” Jane asked as her camel obediently stepped forward.

Bucky absentmindedly drummed his fingers on his thigh, inches away from his gun holster. “As fellow travelers, they should leave us be, even if we may have to deal with the other’s presence in the city.” He grit his teeth. “I would like to know what they are looking for in Hamunaptra.”

“They also have a presumably injured camel and I don’t believe they have noticed us yet.” Darcy brushed a curl off her cheek. “We either greet them or head around them.”

“You on the dune!” a voice called from the other group.

Darcy barely let a shoulder slump forward. “They noticed us.”

“I only hope we have encountered a group who will not ask too many questions about us,” Jane sighed.

“I can always shoot someone,” Bucky brightly offered before starting down the dune. Darcy and Jane followed behind him.

One of the men from the group directed his camel near the trio as they approached. “What brings you folks out here?”

“Travel,” Jane tersely replied.

The greeter raised an eyebrow. “We’re traveling to Hamunaptra. Is your travel taking you to the same place?”

It did not escape Darcy or Jane how several eyes of the company had turned to them and a murmuring quickly spread through the assembled men.

The two women held their heads a little higher. Societal expectations on what was or wasn’t proper for women to do was a barrier they had anticipated to reach at some point in their travels. Actually reaching it felt more than a little jarring.

Another man joined the greeter. “Hello,” he said with a polite nod.

“We are headed to Hamunaptra as well,” Bucky finally said, keeping his words clipped but not hostile. They had other places to be than dallying with this group.

Slowly, more of the men who were not assembled around the camera approached. 

“What curiosity are you looking for in the City of the Dead then?” one asked, amusement in his tone.

Jane fixed the speaker with a level stare. “An artifact. And you?”

He chuckled. “There are plenty of stories about the wealth hidden in the city.”

“The stories also talk of some danger,” Darcy shot back.

“I’m not afraid of a few rumors.”

The first man to talk to them cleared his throat and smiled at the trio. Jane resisted the urge to roll her eyes as he asked, “What sort of artifact are you looking for? Are you associated with a museum?”

“No, and the details of our artifact are not pertinent to your treasure hunting.”

Bucky and Darcy made no attempt to hide their smiles.

The same man who had earlier laughed at Jane again spoke up. “And what if we get to your artifact first?”

“What if we get to Hamunaptra first?” Darcy and Jane asked in harmony.

Another murmur went up from the surrounding men.

“What do you think?” Jane asked Bucky, making sure her voice carried far enough for everyone to hear, “Another day and a half of travel to the city, can we feasibly get there before them?”

“We had best be getting on our way, if that is our new plan.”

“Excellent. Gentlemen, if you’ll please excuse us, we have ground to cover.” Jane kept her tone as sweet as she could manage.

A disdainful comment of, “Overconfident woman,” came from one of the men.

Darcy followed Jane’s suit with staying as sweet as possible. “If you would break to let us through, that would be wonderful.”

All of the men’s eyes went to Bucky. He leaned forward to pat his camel’s neck before wryly grinning. “You heard her as clearly as I did.”

With a grumble, the men formed a gap for the camels to snugly fit through.

As Darcy, Jane, and Bucky approached the top of the sand dune, they heard a yell.

“It’s a bloody excess camel! Just take the supplies off and leave the damned thing here!”

Despite herself, Darcy couldn’t help but giggle. 

“I believe we threatened them somehow,” Jane lightly remarked.

Bucky laughed. “By the time they stop arguing over whose camel gets to carry those extra supplies, I wholly expect us to be at least another sand dune away, if not two.”

As they made camp come nightfall, Darcy estimated a difference of the travel time for two sand dunes between them and the other group. The not so discreet glares she could spot as the other group camped near to them improved the validity of her estimation.

Jane felt very triumphant and was unable to keep from breaking out into a giddy smile for long. “I can only hope they remember this the next time any of them try to under credit anything a woman does.”

“There is your life’s work,” Darcy pronounced, feeding off her friend’s enthusiasm.

“To continue that life’s work, we need to get back to moving in the morning before they can, otherwise it could be a close race to the city.”

“I bid you goodnight, in that case.” Jane laid out her sleeping roll and crawled in, barely shaking around for a scorpion check before dozing off. 

“Do you think they may try and sabotage us?” Darcy quietly asked Bucky once she was certain her friend would not be paying any attention to them. They had each laid out their own sleeping rolls, but opted to sit on top of them and face each other.

Bucky thoughtfully looked over his shoulder at the other group, where they had somehow started a campfire. “That would take the effort on their part to admit we may beat them. They worked to stop at the same place as us, yes, but I doubt their egos will let them bother with us enough to care, at least openly.”

“Jane did frustrate them very well.”

“I’ll sleep lightly, in case if they would try anything.”

“I’m glad that we have you here, Bucky.”

He waved a hand. “I’m happy to be of help.”

\--

Jane snapped her fingers directly in front of Darcy’s face. “Are you sleepwalking?”

“No.” Darcy frowned at her friend. “I am perfectly awake.”

She was met with a merciless smirk. “Oh?” Jane tightened her pack’s strap on her camel and absentmindedly patted its side to quiet it. “It wasn’t an accident that you keep on furtively glancing back to see Mr. Barnes?”

“I am simply checking that Bucky is working efficiently and quietly so we can get on our way as quickly as possible,” Darcy innocently mumbled.

“If you’ll stop getting distracted, we should be able to set out very soon.”

“Give me a moment.”

With only an echo of a smile, Jane pulled herself onto her own camel and waited for Darcy to follow suit as Bucky finished stowing his gear. Even with their need for haste, he had made time for a check over his weaponry before they left for Hamunaptra.

They hoped it was merely a precaution taken in the name of preparing for any and all circumstances.

“I’d suggest avoiding conversation until we clear that ridge,” Bucky murmured to Jane and Darcy while pointing into the distance, “Quiet morning like this, I’d hate to wake those fellows up as we tell a joke.”

Both women nodded.

The camels barely needed any prompting before moving, as anxious to get going as their riders.

The aforementioned ridge was nearly a 45 minute ride from the campsite. Darcy was all too happy to break the relative silence as they continued over.

“If I’m not mistaken, they’re beginning on their way.”

“At least they’re very unlikely to catch up.” Jane’s delight was contagious.

“We should establish a greeting party for them in Hamunaptra.”

“Surprise them like your sixteenth birthday?”

Darcy feigned shock but couldn’t refrain from a giggle. “Jane, no! That would be terrible!”

“Your mother thought it was a marvelous idea.”

“Mother is not always right.”

“This sounds like a fascinating story,” Bucky enthusiastically said.

“Oh no, it really—”

Jane cut Darcy off with a bright laugh. “I will do a much better job in the telling. Our dear Darcy was about to turn sixteen…”

Between interruptions and tangents, it took Jane a good half an hour to finish the tragic story of an attempted surprise birthday party for Darcy, complete with an embarrassed young man and several pounds of strawberries.

Bucky’s laughter dissolved into a confused stare as sunlight crept over the dune behind them, illuminating stone walls that had seen better days.

Darcy blinked. “Is that… Bucky?”

He swallowed before looking at her. “I misjudged how far we had traveled.”

“Hamunaptra,” Jane breathed out, her eyes locked on the city. She ignored Darcy and Bucky’s conversation and started forward, her heart pounding unexpectedly.

The quadrant was so close. Only a little bit of searching, and the answers would be in her grasp. 

“Jane!” Darcy yelled in exasperation before sighing, “Never mind. It’s easier to follow when she gets too focused like this.”

They entered Hamunaptra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to come say hello (etc.), I'm widowsresolve on tumblr!


	3. Journeying to the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I keep on forgetting to mention it in previous chapters, before I even started writing this I just made an inspiration graphic for what I imagined a Mummy Wintershock AU would be like, and that's [here](http://widowsresolve.tumblr.com/post/119981355239/wintershock-the-mummy-au-with-jane-someone). :)

Darcy’s hand had begun to cramp, but she simply couldn’t stop sketching and taking notes. It was Hamunaptra. She was one of the few people known to have ever entered the city in many, many years. She wanted to remember everything.

For her part, Jane was busy too, albeit with eagerly trying to find the location of the quadrant. She had barely rested since crossing past the first stone wall, her heartbeat pounding loud in her ears. She was so close and just had to piece together the clues. Everything, all her dreams and aspirations, were about to be that much closer.

Bucky wasn’t sure which woman was better to keep an eye trained on at any given moment, in case of accidental endangerment thanks to preoccupation. 

The other group had entered the city a good hour after Jane, Darcy, and Bucky’s arrival, and had yet to address them. Whether that was a good or bad sign had yet to be seen.

“I doubt the quadrant is hiding along the wall, regardless of how much you probe it,” Darcy loudly said from her seat on a mound of stone. Jane was closely investigating the exterior of one of the still standing buildings in front of her, feeling along every crack for Jane only knew what purpose.

“I need to be thorough.”

Darcy frowned at her increasingly sore hand and stuck her pencil behind her ear before looking up at Jane. “It will be inside a building, not hiding in the wall. What person would store the quadrant in the wall?” 

“We could be surprised.”

“If you want to investigate the interiors, you might want to begin staking out a claim to the specific buildings,” Bucky interjected, “Looks like they’re starting to go inside a few of the buildings, and I doubt they’re going to let us wander in after them.”

Jane separated from the wall to look where Bucky had opted to point out the other group. She sighed. “The exact details of where to look for the quadrant are mainly indicative of it being located somewhere in Hamunaptra, so I have no good idea for where to center my search.” Her hands clenched into fists. “We cannot let them possibly stumble across it first though.”

“Then we should start looking building by building,” Darcy said. She set aside her notes and moved to stand by the building’s entryway. 

“And trust that we might just stumble across it?” Jane asked even as she walked over next to Darcy.

“Until you think of something that gives us a more definite location, yes.”

It was Bucky’s turn to sigh. “Wait for a second. Before entering any of these buildings, we need a plan.” He knelt by his pack and started rummaging around inside while continuing to speak over his shoulder as Darcy and Jane followed him. “Believe me about there being dangers here or not, we know there will probably be at least some form of booby trap if we’re heading along the right path, and there are a lot of valuable items here.” He stood and pocketed a pistol before hoisting his shotgun over his shoulder. “We’ll explore cautiously and will not wander off on our own under any circumstances.”

Jane was still for a second before nodding. “We should start then. The day does not grow any longer.”

She turned and went straight back for the entryway, only waiting for Darcy and Bucky to follow several steps behind her before crossing the threshold into noticeably cooler air.

“Congratulations Jane, you found us an easy respite from the desert heat!” Darcy couldn’t help but immediately comment, “Why didn’t we do this sooner? I was beginning to worry that I would have to risk sunburn just to keep my hair from melting off under this hat!”

Bucky choked back a laugh and Jane looked back over her shoulder.

“Darcy- oh, you’re smiling. Hilarious.” Jane again focused on the wall before making a triumphant sound as she pulled an old torch from its bracket. “Mister Barnes, do we have a way of lighting this?”

“Take this please.” He carefully handed Darcy his shotgun before kneeling and maneuvering the pack off his shoulders so he could dig around inside before procuring a box of matches within seconds. “This should do the job.”

Jane held the torch out to Bucky while he lit a match. It took two attempts before a decent sized flame sprung to life along the torch.

She lifted the torch to illuminate the dark hallway in front of them. There were several more filled torch brackets along the wall, scattered from side to side about every ten feet. Jane turned while keeping the torch positioned in front of her to light the hall. “Darcy, can you grab that nearest torch?”

“I am not carrying both the shotgun and a lit torch. Something is bound to go terribly wrong in that circumstance.”

Bucky had repositioned his pack and extended a hand towards Darcy. “I’ll take the shotgun back.”

“With pleasure.” Darcy carefully transferred the shotgun into Bucky’s grip before ambling to the torch bracket. “Before I even think about picking this torch up,” she cheerfully asked, “when do we need to begin to worry about booby traps?”

“Now.”

“Lovely.” Darcy pulled out the torch and stood still for a second in front of the bracket before giving a deep sigh of relief. “Not that one though.”

“I wouldn’t let your guard down yet. We have yet to reach any of the chambers.” Bucky waited until Darcy had lit her torch from Jane’s and held it in front of her before stepping in front of both of them. He held the shotgun so that he could have it positioned in an ideal firing position at a moment’s notice and began to cautiously lead the way down the hall.

They passed several more torch brackets before the hall led them into a wide room with an elevated ceiling. A shaft of sunlight came through a small hole in the roof, glinting off an object positioned directly below.

It was a stand about four feet tall, with a large, flat circle shape attached on its top.

Jane turned and stuck her torch in an unfilled bracket on the wall. “You may want to close your eyes,” she warned over her shoulder while walking towards the sunlight.

Darcy made a 180 degree turn. “You’ll want to push it a little to the right before tilting it, and we have no idea how dusty some of these are. It may not work like we’re to expect.”

“Try not to get the light in your eyes too,” Bucky warned.

“It’ll be fine,” Jane reassured before picking up the object to shift it several inches to the right, as Darcy had directed. She gently adjusted the circle to stay at a 45 degree angle underneath the sun beam and immediately shut her eyes as light filled the room, dimmer towards the edges because of dust coatings on the mirrors.

Bucky and Darcy stepped into the main part of the room, both gazing in some awe at the scenery around them. Though fallen into some disrepair, elaborate columns lined the edges of the room, several with wall art decorating the stones in between them.

“Think this will give you any clues?” he asked.

Jane mutely walked towards the far wall.

“She is now focused only on investigating,” Darcy conspiratorially fake-whispered to Bucky, “Now all we can do is keep an eye on her and hope she finds what she’s looking for.” She took another glance at the wall behind them. “Except I am also going to look at these and hope the both of us will be perfectly safe.”

He almost chuckled. “Scream if you need anything. I’ll try to keep an eye out for both of you.”

Darcy gave him a wink in response while she reached for her notes. There was art to decipher. She could hardly let the opportunity pass her by, considering Jane would manage by herself.

Bucky decided to begin to dust off several of the outer mirrors. 

Neither woman seemed to notice until he passed behind Darcy and caught a murmured thank you.

It was quiet as a grave in the room, except for the small scratch of Darcy’s pencil against paper and each of their footsteps when they moved. Bucky was beginning to fear that they had accidentally invaded a tomb.

He jumped as Jane gave a triumphant shout and had to take a second to steady his hand on the shotgun.

“We almost have it!”

Darcy had leapt to her feet and hurried over to where Jane stood. Bucky joined at a slower pace.

Jane pointed to the wall art she had been intently scouring. “If you look here, this man is shown to be placing an object that for all accounts looks to be the quadrant near or into this sarcophagus. If we find our sarcophagus, we have the quadrant!”

“Disturbing the dead? We might want to rethink that.”

Both Darcy and Jane turned to look up at Bucky’s grim expression. 

“Mister Barnes,” Jane slowly began, “is there something you know that you want to tell us?”

“I know enough about Egyptian mythology and culture to tell you they place a great deal of emphasis on death and keeping their dead’s resting places unbothered. Hamunaptra is technically the City of the Dead.”

“We won’t actually bother whomever the mummy in the sarcophagus is.”

“If they have the quadrant, I am certain they would understand the situation and want to help progress our scientific knowledge,” Jane reasoned.

“The dead stay dead,” Darcy finished.

Bucky nearly sighed. “I have a bad feeling about this. There are things that defy explanation out here in the desert, near this city. I do believe it is all connected somehow, and I cannot imagine that the city is immune to the phenomena.” He nervously adjusted his hold on the shotgun.

“If you’re referring to sandstorms that are prevalent in the area, we may not understand them but they are just one of nature’s events. The strange things of the desert are not necessarily supernatural.”

“I’ve seen plenty of sandstorms over the years.” Bucky’s voice was tight in his throat and he stared at the wall art before them. “Hamunaptra holds stranger things than an unexpected storm.”

Darcy coughed. “Yet you refuse to tell us anything about your experiences.”

He attempted a shrug. “Admittedly, sometimes I still question whether I recollect everything properly.”

Neither woman knew what to say in response.

Jane looked back to the depiction of the quadrant for a long moment before quietly saying, “I trust that we will be fine. The quadrant needs to be found, and I struggle to believe we are here by mere universal coincidence.”

Darcy brushed her hair back over her shoulders. “For the record, I am not good at finding tombs, or at least I don’t think I have that particular talent, so I officially vote myself out of being in charge of that.”

“Based off of some of the other pictures, I would hazard a guess that our tomb is within the same chamber network.” Jane adjusted how her own hat sat on her head. “Is there an exit from this room?”

Bucky gestured behind him. “That way. We still have to keep an eye out for any traps.”

“Naturally.”

Before he could open his mouth to offer a reply, Jane was beelining for the exit.

“See? Investigative Jane.” Darcy was only a few paces behind Jane and addressed Bucky over her shoulder.

“What about the torch?” Bucky loudly asked, and couldn’t help but smile as Jane hastily changed course to grab the torch from the bracket nearest their entrance. He waited in the doorway by the exit with Darcy until Jane rejoined them. “Any important information about whose tomb the quadrant is in gleaned from the art? What sort of person were they? Are there likely to be traps along the way?”

“If I had to guess, I would assume the tomb belongs to someone who held a position somewhere near the pharaoh, but somehow unforgivably offended their pharaoh, at least from what I saw,” Darcy offered.

“They put the quadrant with this individual, so presumably astronomy was at least an interest of theirs.”

Darcy nodded as Jane spoke. “Adviser to the pharaoh?”

“It seems a fair assumption.”

Bucky also nodded. “There may or may not be any traps then, depending on how much the pharaoh was personally attached to this adviser. We all need to be careful walking into this.”

“Mister Barnes,” Jane wryly remarked, “can you see us being anything but?”

“A reminder never caused any harm.”

Darcy struggled to keep from smiling and gestured at the dark passageway before them. “Bucky, you have the shotgun. Feel free to lead the way. Jane can be the light one step behind and I can be the extra set of eyes and ears two steps behind, maybe three if there is some sort of trap or trouble.” She also struggled to keep from winking as she spoke.

He chuckled for a moment before taking a cautious first step into the passageway. “Scream if you need anything,” he repeated with a grin that she couldn’t see.

Jane opened her mouth to say something before following behind Bucky without saying anything. She only glanced over her shoulder to catch Darcy in step and broadly smiling.

\--

The most eventful part of traveling through the passage came as Jane and Bucky carefully inched their way forward into what appeared to be an antechamber in the torchlight. 

She stopped a step into the room and stared, quiet for a moment. “We’re close,” she finally whispered.

Darcy couldn’t see through Jane and Bucky’s bodies blocking the antechamber entrance and a majority of the torchlight was also hidden from influencing her view. With an involuntary shiver of sudden apprehension, she nervously glanced over her shoulder at the darkened passageway. She quickly turned back to face the antechamber and asked, “What is it?”

Jane walked further into the room, and raised the torch. Wonder lined her tone as she spoke. “A map of the stars.”

“Astronomy was important in our mummy’s life.” Darcy sidled up beside Bucky in the antechamber entryway to take in the elaborately detailed depiction of constellations and assorted stars on the ceiling and walls of the room.

Bucky scanned the room from left to right now that Jane had moved closer to the center, sending torchlight to illuminate most of the surfaces in the room.

“Darcy?”

She angled herself to look at him. “Bucky?”

He pointed across the room and to the left. “Which of those exits will we want?” 

Hieroglyphs were above each exit. Darcy investigated each set while Jane slowly headed towards her, far more focused on the accuracy of the ceiling art.

“This is unbelievable,” she dreamily managed to say.

Darcy absentmindedly nodded and looked back to Bucky. She was nearest the left exit and pointed at it. “This would take us to a cursed treasure room. The other exit should take us to the tomb.”

Jane stopped staring at the ceiling and murmured something to herself that Darcy thought sounded like, “Right, we need to head for the tomb.” Regardless of what she had said, Jane started for the proper exit.

Bucky ruefully shook his head. “Is it always like this?” he asked Darcy.

She pursed her lips. “Sometimes.”

They both followed behind Jane, who barely waited for them to get within several feet of her before proceeding down the hallway towards the tomb.

“Jane?” Darcy loudly asked, “Jane, can we take a second to not charge directly forward?”

“We will be fine. There have not been troubles this far in, I doubt there will be any now.” Despite her disregard for Darcy’s concern, Jane slowed down several paces.

Darcy hopefully glanced over at Bucky, who only shook his head. She let her shoulders droop and jogged forward to be beside Jane. “This mummy is entombed in Hamunaptra for a reason. It is the best idea for us all to be careful in here.”

“We are being careful,” Jane retorted.

“Bucky has the shotgun and he is currently walking behind us, which does not seem to be very careful on our parts.”

Jane stopped. “Mister Barnes?”

“I’m coming to the front.” He waited for Darcy and Jane to angle themselves so that he could pass through before stepping to head their mini procession through the hallway. “I imagine the tomb is not too far from the antechamber, for ease of building a smaller tomb network.”

Grave silence filled the air when none of them had anything they particularly wanted to say. Darcy contentedly watched the torchlight dance along the stone walls, occasionally illuminating small evidences of the wear of time on their surfaces.

She accidentally walked directly into Bucky’s back when she forgot to pay attention to their progress.

“Sorry!” she immediately murmured.

He lightly replied, “We found the tomb.”

Within what they could see, a series of small steps led to a platform area with two columns designating either side of an elevated sarcophagus. 

For a moment, Darcy was afraid that Jane had forgotten to breathe until she let out an excited exhale, after which she began giving instructions. “We need to check around the tomb first before we even think to trouble the sarcophagus.” Her eyes were bright. “The walls could possibly hold a compartment for the quadrant, so we will need to be very thorough.”

Darcy grabbed another torch from a bracket near the door and held back a grimace as its accompanying layer of dust poofed into her face. She blinked several times before extending the far end towards Jane. “Can you please light this?” She waited for her torch to catch before saying, “Thank you,” and turning to face the opposite side of the room from Jane. “Shall we divide and conquer?”

Bucky positioned the shotgun across his back. “We should be fine.”

“Scream if we need any assistance?” Darcy teasingly confirmed.

He smirked. “A shout would work as well.”

“There should be brackets along the walls for the torch too,” Jane commented, oblivious to the exchange between Darcy and Bucky.

“I should probably keep a closer eye on her.”

“Probably. And hope that we find the quadrant easily.”

His laughter came with a touch of nervousness. “We will have to see.”

Darcy had a broad smile before facing away from Bucky to the tomb around her. There was a lot of wall to investigate.

\--

They had all lost track of an estimate of the time it was taking to search around the tomb for some quadrant hiding place. Jane had tried to optimistically encourage that it could still be behind a cranny. Bucky and Darcy had given her mildly baleful looks in response.

“We should look in the sarcophagus,” Jane finally admitted, “and if the quadrant is not with the mummy, then we can keep on looking out here.”

Darcy was already heading towards the center platform area.

In the brief moments it took for Bucky and Jane to catch up, she was visually scouring the exterior of the sarcophagus.

“Our mummy is N’Kantu,” Darcy pronounced as they came closer, “and it says that he was an adviser to a pharaoh whose name I am not entirely familiar with until N’Kantu betrayed him.”

“How do you betray your pharaoh, as one of his advisers even, and then end up entombed in Hamunaptra?” Jane wondered aloud.

“There is nothing here to say how or why.”

Bucky put an arm around the sarcophagus lid. “More importantly, if we want to look inside we have to take this off. Darcy, Jane, can you please push at either end?” He repositioned his arm so that he would also push, rather than pull.

Both women moved to their closest end and waited for Bucky to count before pressing on the sarcophagus lid. Four counts later, they had the lid a little more than halfway off, and before any of them could react it toppled off the other side.

Jane frowned. “I suppose we are not placing that back on top.”

“No,” Bucky agreed before leaning over to peer at the decorated coffin inside the sarcophagus. “Is the quadrant more likely to be with the body or outside the coffin?”

“I have no idea.” Jane started to walk around all of the sarcophagus, looking at the assortment of items arranged outside the coffin the whole way around.

While Jane eagerly searched, Darcy took a step closer to the sarcophagus. She was trying to place what her mind was attempting to tell her was different about this particular coffin than the others she had seen inside museums.

“The quadrant has to be inside the coffin.”

Darcy realized the difference. “The rites are scratched out,” she murmured before saying, “Whatever N’Kantu did, the pharaoh may have had him placed here in death, but the pharaoh did not want him to have the afterlife.”

“We can research about N’Kantu after we leave with the quadrant.”

Bucky sized up the coffin before gesturing Darcy and Jane aside. “Give me a moment to pry this lid off.”

He took the shotgun off his back and handed it to Darcy before trying to pull on the coffin lid with a grunt. It barely shifted up.

Jane coughed. “Do you need us to help?”

“Can I have the shotgun?” Bucky extended his hand towards Darcy without looking. She gave him the shotgun and he positioned himself at one end of the coffin. He managed to lift the end up several inches before he shoved the butt end of the shotgun into the space he had created. “Now I need the help.”

Almost in harmony, Jane and Darcy headed for the end of the coffin opposite Bucky and reached to lift. Jane got the best grip and heaved while Bucky adjusted his own grip on his end, careful to support the shotgun with his legs so it wouldn’t fall. Between the two of them and Darcy’s quick adjust to help support the middle, they were able to lift the lid aside of the coffin.

Darcy involuntarily jumped at the sight of N’Kantu’s body.

“Is the quadrant inside?” Jane eagerly asked as she leaned over the coffin. Her excitement became mingled with disgust within seconds. “His mummification…”

“No rites, an incomplete mummification, the pharaoh was immensely unhappy with him, whatever he did.”

Bucky glanced at the body and raised a brow. “Still juicy in there?”

Jane shook off her disgust at the state of the body and reached inside to pry an object out of N’Kantu’s hands, which were thankfully dry and not physically wrapped around the quadrant. She wasn’t entirely certain that she would have been able to remain casual about cracking leathery fingers off the quadrant.

As it was, she let out a relieved sigh.

“We have it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to any die-hard N'Kantu fans, I will be taking liberties with his story to fit within the universe.


	4. Only the Beginning

Jane could have fainted out of joy and finally allowed her mind to wander off into reflection of exactly what her research plans would be. She would focus on-

“Are you still with us?” Darcy had come around to wave a hand in front of Jane’s distant expression. She was grateful when her friend seemingly blinked herself back into reality.

Bucky adjusted how he held his shotgun, semi-consciously readying it for the possibility of quick use. “We have the quadrant, now I believe we should hurry back to the entrance.” He couldn’t pin down why he was so restless to get out of the tomb, and Bucky was not about to mention that his stomach was twisted into anxious knots for no apparent reason. “The camels may not be doing too well on their own.”

Darcy brushed a thin layer of dust from a section of her hair with a frown. “And I certainly have not been monitoring how much longer we will have sunlight to establish our camp for the night.”

Without a word and cradling the quadrant to her chest, Jane straightened and looked towards the tomb entrance. “Darcy, a torch please.”

“Wait,” Bucky warned as he held up a hand to gesture for Jane and Darcy to stay back. He slowly stepped off the platform and towards the entrance, the shotgun held at the ready.  
Within a matter of seconds, Darcy and Jane also caught the sound of hushed voices and footsteps progressing towards the tomb’s entrance.

“Hide the quadrant!” Darcy hissed.

“We can-,” Jane started to say before Darcy cut her off.

“Jane! We came this far, can we at least remain cautious?” Darcy insistently extended her opened bag towards Jane. “It may not fit perfectly but it will be less noticeable. Thank you.” She hastily reclosed the bag after the quadrant was tucked inside without bumping into her notes.

The voices were easily distinguished as members of the other group. Bucky retraced his steps back to stand near Jane and Darcy, but did not relax his grip on the shotgun.

“I am not expecting this to be entirely friendly,” he muttered.

“More than likely.”

Jane looked at the broken sarcophagus lid. “If any questions are asked, our explanation is half the truth. We were looking for the artifact, became desperate, and broke into the sarcophagus without finding anything within.”

Darcy nodded and couldn’t refrain from frowning as the long forms of the other group’s shadows began to appear along the walls.

“No luck with any treasure in here,” Bucky loudly called out.

One of the shadows jumped.

The same man who had first greeted the trio came through the entryway. “Well hello.” He raised an eyebrow upon spotting the opened sarcophagus. A handful of others filed in behind him. “Just looking for an artifact?”

Darcy shrugged and half bit at her lower lip. “We became desperate.”

Barely hidden chuckles arose from the back of the other group. 

The greeter continued with a sly wink, “Perhaps you should have had a guide who could accurately judge the age of the parts of the city.”

Before Bucky could offer a tight response, Jane clapped her hands together. “Or perhaps we were simply misled as to what space of time our artifact was to be found in. There is still so much to be learned about the mechanics of ancient Egypt,” she brightly said.

No one from the other group knew how to respond to her enthusiasm. 

After a long moment, a man from the back commented, “You’ll probably want to think about turnin’ in for the night before lookin’ around anymore. Only a few hours of daylight left by this point, I would wager.”

“Thank you,” Darcy quickly said, her grateful smile clearly more strained than genuine to Jane’s familiarity with Darcy’s body language. 

Bucky put the shotgun back over his shoulder. “The camels do need our attention.”

The other group moved further into the room to unblock passage through the entryway.

“Need any help finding the way back out?” one of the group asked.

“We can manage,” Jane immediately replied. Head held high, she began to breeze past for the entryway, Darcy and Bucky yet again following only several steps behind her. They were each looking warnings at the members of the other group.

Hushed chatter from the group arose as soon as the trio had cleared the threshold of the entryway.

Jane scowled. “They are-.”

“Wait,” Darcy whispered. She put her hand against Bucky’s elbow and was a little surprised when he immediately turned towards her. “They would be idiotic not to at least look in the sarcophagus.”

“We have the quadrant,” Jane reminded.

“And I have a feeling.” Darcy carefully inched backwards so she had a better view of the other group approaching the sarcophagus. Exclamations of disgust arose before they convinced one of their men to reach in and feel around N’Kantu’s body. “They must believe they interrupted our discovering something,” Darcy breathed out quietly enough for only her to hear.

“The camels need us.”

“They can wait a little bit longer,” Bucky murmured.

The man who had been feeling around pulled something out of the sarcophagus. Darcy quickly hurried back from view and went to grab at Jane’s arms.

She was barely able to keep her voice from rising. “There was something else in the sarcophagus!”

Jane blinked. “It could be associated with the quadrant.” Her eyes narrowed. “We-.”

Bucky cut her off mid-phrase. “If they find us loitering around the tomb, they will only become more suspicious, and Darcy did not see what it was. We camp for the night and decide what action to take when they are unlikely to walk by and overhear.”

It took a moment, but Jane stubbornly nodded while simultaneously glaring towards the tomb. “Tonight.”

“You have no idea what the item is.” Bucky was tempted to heavily sigh.

While they began walking back towards where they had entered the passageway system earlier that day, Darcy leaned over to Bucky and pointedly looked at Jane. “It’s easier to follow when she gets like this.”

He exhaled in lieu of a sigh. “Not yet.”

\--

The camels were all too happy to see the trio again. Jane was distracted all through the process of setting up their campsite, continually looking over to where the other group was visible in their own preparations.

Darcy could barely believe that she had to ask for her friend’s attention as she began unpacking her bag. “Jane, where do you want the quadrant?”

Slowly, Jane tore her gaze away from the other group and almost reverentially looked at the quadrant in Darcy’s lap. She gently lifted it and turned it over in her hands.

“For the time being,” Jane said after several long moments of staring at the quadrant, “the best option may be for it to remain in your bag.” Despite her words, she hesitated in giving the quadrant back to Darcy. “Our priority is to keep it safe.” Jane spoke more to herself than to Darcy or Bucky, who shared a look.

His shotgun was propped up against his pack several steps away as he checked over the campsite, ready if any need arose.

“The plan was to camp for the night,” he said to Jane as she again glanced over to the other group, “Not to impulsively pursue a mystery.”

“I’m aware.”

Darcy cleared her throat and came to sit by Jane, putting one arm through hers. “We can always distract him,” she murmured beneath her breath before brightly saying, “And while we are camping yet again, we can comment on the stars.” As a final note, she elbowed Jane’s side and received a glare for her efforts.

Bucky fought back a smile. “It looks to be a clear night.”

Her glare vanished as Jane looked up. “We share some constellation designations with the ancient Egyptians.” She pointed towards a section of the sky. “Those are commonly associated with a lion design for Leo. And there, our Leo Minor, is what the Egyptians called the Plunderer.”

“Tomb plunderers?” Darcy wondered aloud.

Jane paused. “It can be alternatively interpreted as the capturer.”

“To capture the tomb plunderers?”

“How much emphasis did the ancient Egyptians place in the meaning of their constellations?” Bucky asked in following up to Darcy’s question. He glanced in the direction of N’Kantu’s tomb and was briefly unsure if he had only imagined a cool breeze suddenly blowing.

“Without talking to any of them,” Jane said with a tinge of bitterness to her voice, neither she nor Darcy noting Bucky’s look, “we may never know enough. Research and probable conclusions can only take us so far.”

Darcy lightly bumped Jane’s side. “Perhaps the quadrant can provide some additional answers.”

So many possibilities. The idea of it sent goosebumps along Jane’s skin. “It will take time.”

She would best the scientific community or die trying, everyone knew without her needing to vocalize the thought.

The camels settled down with a small huff, momentarily attracting all their attentions.

Bucky fought back a yawn. “We’ve all had a long day. Maybe they,” he gestured towards the camels, “have the right idea.”

Darcy quickly stood and forced a yawn of her own. “Unless if we plan ahead for tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Jane put her head in her hands and groaned. “I had yet to even consider that.” She raised her head to look at Darcy. “I would say thank you but it couldn’t be genuine.”

“This is why I stay,” Darcy pronounced. She stretched her arms above her head before brushing past Bucky with a small smile as he slightly turned towards her. “But I am exhausted and will call this a day. Decisions can always wait until the morning.”

“Check for any scorpions,” Bucky told her with a smirk.

Jane shivered. “With that reminder, I am also turning in for the night.” 

Darcy turned and waited for Jane to come up beside her while telling Bucky, “And I will remember to scream if I find any of them. Sleep accordingly.”

He chuckled. “I can keep that in mind.”

The two women settled into their sleeping rolls and remained still and silent until they thought they heard Bucky entering his own tent and turning in. 

In a barely audible whisper, Darcy asked Jane, “And our plan is?”

“Can you absolutely identify the man who pulled the other item out of the sarcophagus?”

“I believe so.” Darcy’s brow furrowed. “There is no guarantee that he would be the one to hold onto it though.”

Jane almost nodded before remembering Darcy was unlikely to see the motion. “We may at least have a start. We can sneak around into their campsite and if it is difficult to tell where the other item is we can begin searching through their things.”

“Assuming that none of them are awake.”

“I think they may have been drinking.”

“That is no guarantee of deep sleep,” Darcy hastily said.

“And we both know how to be effective at not being noticed.” Jane began to slowly slip out of her sleeping roll. “We also only have a partial night to work in.”

Darcy also started to get out of her sleeping roll. “Is there an alternative plan if someone in their camp is keeping watch?”

“That depends on if we can sneak up on them.”

To herself, Darcy let out a sigh and murmured, “To no surprise, violence is our plan.”

They both silently crept to their tent’s entrance flap and inched it open just enough for them to slip out. Free of the tent, they continued to carefully proceed out of their campsite, sticking to the deepest shadows among the city ruins as they maneuvered towards the other campsite.

Jane stuck her arm out to block Darcy from moving any further and earned a low grumble in response for the action.

“Did you see anything?” Darcy asked.

“I was going to ask you that.” Jane lowered her arm. “They appear to be without anyone watching.”

Darcy took a step forward to be even with Jane. “Agreed.” She started another step only to pause midway through the motion. “I know that we have an existing plan, but please, can we decide on what we do now if we were to be discovered at some point in the camp?”

“Violence and talking our way out of a situation?”

“We should have borrowed Bucky’s shotgun.”

Jane ducked her head and laughed before heading for a relatively shadowed part of the campsite.

Someone nearby was snoring. Too close to risk words, Jane gestured for Darcy to peek inside the nearest tent.

She shot Jane a warning glare before standing parallel with the flaps and using the back of her hand to slowly slide one aside while she craned to look inside at the sleeping figure. Inside was the snorer, and she let the flap fall back into position while shaking her head. Not the man who had reached into the sarcophagus.

The other near tent also did not contain the man they were looking for. Darcy began to lean over those who were not sleeping in a tent and enthusiastically waved Jane closer.

“This is him,” she said, risking a whisper.

For a moment they both stared his form up and down and found that their best option was a brown rucksack next to him. Darcy carefully stretched to pick it up, thankful that the man wasn’t holding onto the thing.

When she turned back around, Jane was gone.

Panic ran through her and she was about to say her name aloud before she saw Jane moving in her peripheral vision, also picking up a moderately sized sack near one of the sleeping men.

They wordlessly slipped out of the campsite and back into a part of the ruins before opening their respective sacks.

Darcy bounced her object in one hand. “It… looks like a depiction of the sun?” They were a ways from a steady light source and did not possess great night vision, but she pieced together what she felt and could dimly see.

“The sun?”

“Yes.”

Jane had pulled a book out of her sack and ran her hand down the front cover before extending her hand towards Darcy. “May I see it? This has a sun shaped indentation.”

“A book? We should see if it says anything first.”

“Of course.” Jane failed to hide her disappointment and looked to gauge how much longer they had until dawn. “I suppose we should get some sleep and can read in the morning.”

Darcy did not mention the fact that it easily already could have been morning. “I stand in favor of that.” She stuck the sun object back into her sack and held it shut, waiting for Jane to put the book back into her own sack before starting for their campsite.

The two women wordlessly worked back into their sleeping rolls, putting the sacks between them for safekeeping. 

Jane barely slept and at the first sign of light at the edge of the tent door flaps she grabbed out the book and sun object.

“What do we have here?” she murmured to herself. In the dim light she could make out a scarab design within the sun shaped indentation on the book’s cover and curiously turned the sun object over in her hands. With a deep breath she put the object in the indentation and only momentarily hesitated with a look over to Darcy before decidedly twisting it.

There was no supernatural flash of light or sudden wind. The only unexpected thing was Darcy beginning to stir as Jane slowly opened the book.

She traced along the first line of hieroglyphs with her finger.

Darcy made a sleepy noise and rolled onto her side before coming to in a matter of moments. “Mmm… Jane?”

“I opened it.”

“Evidently.” Darcy sat up, wrapping an arm around her knees. “Maybe we should wait.”

“No harm ever came from reading a book,” Jane insisted. She held it closer to herself as she spoke, as if she half expected Darcy to attempt to swipe it away.

“How early is it?”

“I’ve no idea.”

Resisting the urge to sigh, Darcy got out of her sleeping roll and moved the nearest tent flap aside with the back of her hand. “Early.”

“If you’d like you could check if Mister Barnes is awake just yet.” Jane grinned as Darcy shoved at her shoulder. “I am only suggesting.”

“May I at least see the book before you are getting rid of me?”

“What book?”

Jane and Darcy both jumped at the sound of Bucky’s voice. He shoved aside the flap to look inside the tent.

“The book that a man from the other group formerly had in his possession,” Jane sheepishly admitted.

Bucky gave a side smile. “I wonder when they’ll notice.”

Darcy had shifted from looking out the other side of the tent to sitting back on her sleeping roll. “Was there any particular reason why you decided to check on us at this point in the morning?” she asked Bucky.

His smile faded. “I thought there was a wind several moments ago and I cannot see any indication of a dust storm.” He hesitated before tacking on, “Something feels unnatural in the air.”

“That is-.” Jane stopped as Darcy held her arm out in front of her.

“I can be another set of eyes. There could still be a dust storm rising.”

Bucky nodded at Darcy and stood aside, holding the tent flap open, as she stepped outside.

While they decided to peer off into the distances of the desert together, Jane returned her attention to the hieroglyphs along the page, figuring she might read the written word before beginning to get a translated idea of what the book contained.

Midway down the page, she paused. “That can’t...”

She stared and translated until she heard Darcy calling her name.

“Jane! Run!”

A buzzing noise was gradually becoming louder. As Jane worked her way out of the tent, the book still in hand, she saw a growing dark cloud on the horizon.

Darcy took her hand and began to pull her towards the ruins. Behind them, Bucky had grabbed his pack and shotgun. They all sprinted towards the nearest opening in the ruins, heedless of what chambers they were running into.

Once they considered themselves safely underground, they all stopped to catch their breath.

“What was that?” Jane asked in between pants.

“No idea,” Darcy replied with a shake of her head.

“The book!” One of the men from the other group was on the other side of the room and had yelled at them. “You’ve opened the book!”

Jane protectively held it behind her. “This could hold important information.”

“The box said it could raise the dead!”

“Oh.” Darcy blinked as realization washed over her.

“Oh? Oh what?” Jane and Bucky had both turned towards Darcy.

She swallowed. “There was one scroll I read as we were trying to find more about the quadrant and Hamunaptra. It mentioned a procedure called the Hom-Dai and how if any victim of the Hom-Dai would somehow be brought back to life the ten plagues of Egypt would follow.”

“So those were locusts,” Bucky said.

“I… believe so.”

Jane paled. “It was a spell in the book. To raise a victim of the Hom-Dai.”

“You raised the dead!” the man from the other group hysterically cried out, “There’s the curse and the plagues!”

“I am unsure what curse he is referring to,” Darcy admitted.

“That we can establish later. The Hom-Dai victim is more than likely N’Kantu.”

Jane audibly gasped. “The quadrant. We have to-.” She stopped as Bucky held out Darcy’s bag towards her. “Thank goodness.”

More men from the other group stumbled into the chamber, clearly frightened of something.

Bucky raised his shotgun. “We need to kill a mummy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: in the 13th century (B.C.E.) we know of at least 43 constellations that the Egyptians were familiar with.
> 
> If anyone is interested I'm widowsresolve on tumblr, and assuming nothing terribly strange happens there should definitely be at least one more chapter up on this before the school year can start. :)


	5. An Unexpected Circumstance

The men from the other group had begun to huddle together and pull out several varieties of guns after lighting a torch. One man made a small yelping sound after another dropped their bag on the ground.

“Where did it come from? What is it?” one of the men asked with a fearful quaver in his voice.

“We believe you’re referring to a mummy,” Darcy called out.

Her words caused something of a ripple effect in the other group as they turned towards her before looking back down the passage they had come from.

“The curse,” someone from the group mumbled.

Jane opted to ignore their worry. “How does N’Ka- the mummy move? How quickly?”

“Their concern is this curse,” Darcy muttered to Jane. She was about to say more when Bucky stiffened beside her.

A wind blew out the torch.

Someone began to murmur a prayer while the other group started to back away from the passage. Darcy grabbed at Jane’s forearm and began to wordlessly prompt her towards the direction they had entered from while Bucky brought the shotgun to his shoulder.

“I can’t hear anything strange,” Jane whispered.

Bucky’s stance had not relaxed. “We-.”

He stopped as an individual from the other group fired a nervous shot towards the passage.

Without enough time to sufficiently adjust to the lack of the torch’s illumination, it was difficult to make out exactly what had happened to the other group until after the fact. After the shot screams had broken out and the group had begun to scatter while seemingly firing in the general direction of the passage.

Bucky had instantly started to lead Jane and Darcy towards a third corridor at the first panicked screams. They were followed after several moments by a couple men from the other group.

“We have to leave!”

“Couldn’t’ve said it better myself,” Bucky grunted.

They all started to hurry down the corridor, only stopping when Darcy yelled out a “Wait!” as the sand in front of them started to push up in a mound.

A small bug popped out the top.

Jane made a split second guess as to what it was. “Scarabs. We need to avoid their path.”

The men from the other group waited for more to pop out before bolting back towards the main room behind the trio. Skittering sounds echoed off the corridor’s walls as the scarabs followed.

Darcy wrapped her arm around Bucky’s and yanked him aside to head for a statue’s platform as they cleared the threshold back into the room.

No one needed to be told to hop up on the platform.

One of the men who had been following the trio had made it to another statue in the room. The other tripped on a small imperfection in the floor and quickly had scarabs jumping all over him in unseen number.

Jane cringed and turned away as he screamed.

As quickly as they had arrived, the scarabs skittered away in search of some other food source.

The man who had jumped onto the other statue was the first to step back onto the ground. He walked to the other man’s skeletal remains as if in a daze, not giving any reaction until touching the bones.

“Oh no.” His voice broke. “No.”

Still holding onto both Jane and Bucky, Darcy initiated stepping down off their statue platform.

“We need to continue on,” she softly said, careful to keep an apologetic tone in her voice.

It took a moment before the man raised his head to reply, his voice strained. “I know.” He started to stand after again looking back down at the other man’s remains.

Jane separated her arm from Darcy. “This way.” She started to move forward.

Bucky waited for another second before pulling his arm out of Darcy’s grip, albeit slowly. To Jane as she walked away, he said, “If the mummy is running around, I think the shotgun should come first.”

She barely turned to look over her shoulder at him. “If we’re hurrying aboveground you’re being a bit slow with having the shotgun in front.” Jane continued on into the passageway.

Darcy cast Bucky a ‘what can you do’ look as she brushed past him to stick close to Jane.

The man had kept something of a glazed over expression in his eyes and seemed to ignore the exchange between Jane and Bucky while approaching the passage entry. He barely took a step aside for Bucky to slip towards the front of the group. By the entry he bumped against the wall corner with his shoulder.

A click followed.

“No- why?” Darcy had turned as a part of the wall had swung open to see the man curiously peeking in before entering the new area. She sighed with a small slump of her shoulders. “He may prove more impulsive than Jane.”

“I can hear you.”

“I felt that it needed to be said.”

Jane opted to wait to give a response until after she had followed the man through the opening in the wall. “Thank you,” she drily said.

With a hand raised to his mouth to hide the quirk to it, Bucky coughed to mask a chuckle.

“What all is over there?” Darcy called out to Jane. When she gave no reply she put her hand against Bucky’s elbow. “Jane?” They went through the wall opening and could make out something bright around the corner. Upon coming around and seeing Jane standing alone in a patch of moonlight Darcy let the set of her shoulders relax. “I was beginning to become worried.”

Jane didn’t turn towards Darcy, only continuing to look forward.

“Jane?” Darcy touched her friend’s shoulder.

Something made a sobbing sound.

“Where did he go?” Bucky worriedly asked. Raising the shotgun to aim came as an instinctive movement.

The sobbing sound repeated, coupled with obvious fear and some scrabbling. After a moment the man came crawling backwards into the area lit up by the beam of moonlight.

Darcy sharply inhaled. “Oh dear.”

A familiar sight came shambling into the moonlight, eliciting a whimper from the man.

“I believe N’Kantu is trying to attack our companion,” Jane whispered, “And we should move.”

Everyone stood still.

N’Kantu continued forward before stopping to take a look at everyone present. His attention quicly turned back to the man.

He jolted back as Bucky fired a shot towards his midsection.

In a flurry of movement, Jane went to pull the man up and out of the side area while Darcy started to shove Bucky along, careful not to overly disturb his aim. He managed another shot towards N’Kantu before hurrying back towards the passage.

They started off into a run back to the surface after clearing the threshold of the wall opening. Rather than keeping the shotgun aimed towards N’Kantu’s body, Bucky turned into his run, although he remained carefully in the back and looked over his shoulder every few steps.

“Back to Cairo?” Darcy asked in a pant as they paused back in their campsite. “We can’t stay.”

Jane nodded and took a moment to catch her breath before saying, “I doubt N’Kantu will easily follow us.”

“I don’t know that we can predict exactly what all he is capable of. He probably had something to do with those scarabs.”

“Discussion is detrimental at this point. We need to be moving,” Bucky cut in to say.

The man had not made any sounds to indicate how he was doing and only looked stricken. He jumped as Darcy touched his upper arm.

“You need to get a camel, and you know the number of camels that your group came with. If you need one of us can accompany you to your camels, but we can’t know at this point in time if anyone from your group has also come aboveground.”

He visibly shook himself to attention. “I think… I should be able to check by myself.”

The trio shared a look.

“It may be faster and for the time being aboveground should be plenty safe,” Bucky murmured. He cast the sand a suspicious look despite his confidence.

Darcy decided she would ask about that when they were in a safer position away from Hamunaptra.

The man had already started to walk off before the trio began to ready their camels.

“If there are others they may slow us down.” Jane tucked the book into a bag on her camel and twisted to questioningly extend Darcy’s bag towards her. “Especially if they prompted this curse and N’Kantu can follow at a decent pace.”

Darcy took the bag from Jane and placed it in her camel’s bags. “If they are worried about a curse they may feel obligated to hurry away as is.”

“Keep the quadrant well hidden.”

“And you should keep that book well out of sight.”

Bucky interrupted Darcy and Jane’s conversation. “We don’t necessarily want to abandon the other group, but if N’Kantu would chase after them we need to hurry out of the way.” He patted his camel’s neck. “We’ve seen the danger Hamunaptra has been hiding all this time and don’t need to find ourselves facing N’Kantu again.”

“Assuming they are the only ones he would be pursuing.” Darcy couldn’t help but look in the direction of her bag.

Jane cleared her throat. “Unnatural aspects aside, N’Kantu is only bone and sinew. With enough time and further research into the Hom-Dai we may find a solution to him.”

“We need to be in Cairo first.”

The camels started to expectantly shuffle forward.

“We’re not leaving here quite yet,” Darcy murmured to hers while attempting to force it to a stop. She looked towards where the other group’s campsite was. “Do we want to bother with the tents or only grab our sleeping rolls before being on our way?”

“We can travel lighter if we leave the tents here.”

“I can get the rolls,” Bucky said, “If you finish prepping the camels all that we should have left to worry about before leaving would be the members of the other group.”

“Speaking of which, I believe there may be a few of them emerging from the passages,” Jane lightly said.

Having successfully brought her camel to a complete stop, Darcy took a half step back from it. “I imagine they will talk to us when they feel to have sufficiently regrouped.”

Bucky nodded. “We may need to leave before then,” he called over his shoulder while heading towards the tents.

“We are well aware!” Darcy called back. She turned to Jane. “This could become complicated.”

“It certainly wouldn’t be the first complicated circumstance we’ve run into.”

After staring at Jane for a moment Darcy broke into a small laugh and shook her head. “To think we’ve found ourselves in the absolutely unexpected.”

“We are looking into things above the ordinary.”

“This remains an unexpected circumstance.”

“And we will make the best of it, and perhaps as we research we will make some discovery about this that will shock the world,” Jane brightly declared. After a moment she frowned and tacked on, “Assuming that there are sufficient resources available and that anyone believes about the undead.”

Darcy scoffed. “As if others’ disbelief would ever hold you back.”

“Thank you for that thought.”

“It’s the truth.”

Bucky came back over with the sleeping rolls in his arms, appropriately distributing Jane and Darcy’s before he began to attach his own to his camel’s bags. He tightened a strap before glancing in the direction of the other group’s campsite. 

Several individuals were hastily collecting items from tents and a couple were debating about whether or not to collapse them.

“They don’t appear to have lost too many people.” Sympathy lined Bucky’s voice.

Jane stepped around her camel. “And here someone comes.”

“The three of us are ready to leave at any time,” Darcy said, “If they would be willing to see us leave in advance of them.”

“We’ll find out.” Bucky thought it was a very nice gesture to not be actively holding his shotgun as the man from the other group approached.

“I understand that you are also leaving the city as quickly as possible,” he said, trying to sound casual but unable to keep the fear and urgency out of his tone.

“We are willing to travel together back to Cairo, assuming your group can quickly be on their way.”

“Absolutely.” The man’s response was eagerly given almost immediately after Jane spoke. “We only need to finish with organizing a few items on the camels.”

“Check that you don’t leave any supplies. The desert will not be inclined towards kindness as the day progresses,” Bucky warned.

The man nodded. “We’ll hurry.” He started to jog back towards his campsite.

Darcy hopped onto her camel and wrinkled her nose. “You can already smell the heat.”

Bucky heavily sighed. “I’m afraid we barely have a choice as to whether or not we’re facing the desert midday. It’s a decision between hazards.”

“The desert we came prepared for.” Jane had also mounted her camel.

“I only hope the scorpions choose to leave us be.”

Jane shivered in response to Darcy’s comment. “Please don’t remind me.”

She grinned. “I cannot account for their behavior and they are not purposefully attempting to antagonize you. It’s only their natural ways.”

“Their curiosity is dangerous for the rest of us and I stand with that.”

Bucky gave a chuckle as he jumped onto his camel. “Perhaps the scorpions will sense your disregard and opt to cast us a wide berth.”

“I do hope.”

“Scorpions are at least better than a horde of scarabs.” Darcy again had to fight her camel to keep from it starting to hurry off. “No,” she scolded, “we are waiting for the others.”

“Sensitivity to N’Kantu’s presence wouldn’t surprise me,” Bucky said.

“Don’t give an excuse for him trying to run off.”

“We’re all somewhat eager to get on our way.”

“And the others are mounting.” Jane urged her camel forward a step. “We can at least begin to leave.”

Darcy sighed before letting her camel start to run off into the desert. “We need no further encouragement!” she called back over her shoulder. After reaching the top of a sand dune she slowed her camel and looked to check that the others were following.

Jane and Bucky were climbing up the side of the dune and the other group was approaching its base.

Looking over Hamunaptra, Darcy thought she saw a patch of sand around one of the ruins forming into a face. Upon blinking it vanished, but she decided to focus on Jane and Bucky’s ascent rather than try to find the face again.

\--

Trekking back to Cairo had mainly been complicated by the heat and pushing the members of the other group on at a suitable pace. Between losing a couple men and worry about their curse, they were a flustered group and needed some corralling. 

They took a much needed moment to come to terms with their distress upon reaching Cairo, several of their immediate responses including alcohol.

Decidedly exhausted after their rushed trip and tired of sand, Darcy and Jane had decided to turn in for a nap upon settling in.

Bucky stuck close between them and the members of the other group, keeping a careful eye to help ensure that they were not getting into trouble.

The few men who had gone to a nearby bar had come running back to their common room, visibly spooked, to inform everyone that all liquids seemed to have temporarily turned into blood.

“It really is the plagues!” one of the men who had stuck near the rooms said, his face drawn.

Hushed discussion over the apparent plagues and what that meant for the feasibility of the curse ringing true started between the other group’s members.

“You never have explained about this curse,” Bucky loudly interjected. The others turned to look at him. “We know it involves the mummy, but it is difficult to anticipate the proper actions to propose if that’s all I know.”

The same man who had yelled at Jane about the curse and the book took a half step forward. “We had unearthed a box with a description on top of how any who opened it would die if the book were used to raise the dead.”

Bucky nodded. “Was there anything else in the box besides the book?”

“There were several canopic jars, which we collected as treasure from this venture.”

“Those may be important to the mummy.”

Realization dawned over several of the men’s expressions, coupled with fear.

“We have to tell Michaels and Gaines.”

“Jimmy, you-.”

“Wait a moment.” Bucky glanced between the door to the room where Darcy and Jane had gone to the assembled members of the other group. “The curse is already a probable cause for the loss of your friend. Keep together and be cautious, I can go to tell Michaels and Gaines to come back here.”

The deliberation over accepting Bucky’s offer was brief and he set out after getting the name of the small shop Michaels and Gaines had said they were heading to. They were simple to find and easily convinced to come back with him at the mention of the curse and the possible impact of their taking the canopic jars.

As they approached the block closest to where everyone was staying, Bucky began to instinctively tense up.

Michaels cast him a questioning look. “Barnes?”

“We need to hurry. Something’s wrong,” he said in a mutter before breaking into a half run. His stomach felt several times too heavy and he was itching to have his shotgun in hand, wishing he hadn’t left it near Darcy’s bag.

From the outside, nothing appeared wrong or out of place.

They slowly opened the door and went inside. Michaels and Gaines had caught onto Bucky’s demeanor and carefully crept along towards the common room.

Gaines quickly ran back out at the sight of several dried up bodies.

The door towards where Darcy and Jane had been was partially open.

“They could still be close.” Bucky went towards his shotgun. Darcy’s bag still sat seemingly untouched beside it in the corner of the side room.

“Barnes?”

Michaels shook his head when Bucky looked at him. They both began to take in the room.

One of the men hesitantly poked out from inside the nearby armoire. Relief became evident in his expression as he saw Bucky and Michaels standing there.

“What happened in here?” Bucky asked.

The relief started to vanish in lieu of uncertainty. “We… the mummy came and attacked the others.” The man focused on Michaels. “Schmidt was with it- him. After we realized it was the mummy I took one of the jars and hid in here. Apparently I was overlooked.”

“I wouldn’t count on that lasting. Curses are crafty little things,” Bucky offhandedly said. Worry crept into his tone as he asked, “What happened to Da- Miss Foster and Miss Lewis?”

The man swallowed. “They’re gone.”


	6. Heart of the Matter

“Gone?” Bucky repeated. His expression and voice had turned eerily calm.

“I don’t entirely know what happened while I was hiding,” the man quickly started to say before paying attention to something over Bucky and Michaels’ shoulders.

They both turned to follow his line of sight.

Darcy’s eyes were wide as she surveyed around the room. Gaines stood several steps behind her and tried to avoid staring at the bodies.

“Oh my.” Her mouth was slightly agape.

“Did you see anything, if you weren’t here at the time of all… this?” Michaels asked.

“No, and I left very shortly after Bucky apparently did. Jane was curious about a passage of a scroll at the museum but they were closed.” Darcy nodded towards Bucky’s shotgun, concern in her eyes. “Is she…?”

He shook his head. “Not here.”

Darcy had her hat in hand and tightened her grip on it. “Oh.”

“We may still be able to find them.” Bucky moved closer towards Darcy and the door. “If Schmidt was with N’Kantu they must be traveling through the city and I would imagine they’re walking. How long were you in the armoire before we came?”

Before the man could answer Bucky, Darcy cut in. “Do we have any idea what state Jane was in?”

“She was protesting as they were leaving,” the man confessed while hanging his head.

Gaines jumped as the door opened.

Bucky raised the shotgun and took a half step to cover Darcy.

“I am no friend of N’Kantu,” a dark skinned man with tattoos of hieroglyphs on his cheeks said while stepping further into the room, “And if you can avoid threatening to shoot me I would like to address his rising and why he took your friend.” He firmly held Bucky’s gaze.

Darcy put her hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Without looking away from the newcomer, he lowered the shotgun.

“We may still have a chance to chase after them.”

“No, the time for that is past, and to currently follow their path would be folly.”

“I am not about to surrender Jane to an unknown fate!” Darcy insisted with a frown. “If we can still find them we may be able to at least hinder their escape or get Jane back!”

The newcomer pointed towards the window. Outside, effective fireballs were raining down on the city.

Michaels and Gaines gulped in near unison.

“I wouldn’t advise braving that,” the newcomer flatly said.

Unable to come up with an argument or retort, Bucky settled for asking, “Who are you and how do you know about N’Kantu?”

“And Jane,” Darcy tacked on.

“I had planned to have a mutual friend introduce us to avoid your concern, but events have unfolded far differently than we had anticipated.” The newcomer gestured towards the chairs and couch. “We don’t need to be entirely unfriendly with each other.”

“I’m going to step out to another room,” Gaines muttered as he hurried towards the door opposite the armoire.

The newcomer waited until he had left to begin explaining himself. “I am Samuel Wilson, one of the Medjai, sworn to prevent evil from rising.” His gaze narrowed. “Such as N’Kantu, though we are also plenty well prepared to combat other evils.”

“If you’re supposed to keep ‘evil from rising’ you probably should keep people away from Hamunaptra.”

“He has,” Bucky murmured before Darcy could continue.

She looked between him and Sam before slowly nodding. “Why look us and the others by then? We were able to enter Hamunaptra perfectly fine and only left after realizing what had happened after reading the book.”

Sam’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “Fate appears to have directed us elsewhere, but N’Kantu will be dealt with.”

Michaels shifted forward in his seat. “We got inside Hamunaptra, that much is in the past.” He sharply gestured towards Sam. “You said you would tell us about the mummy.”

“We know that N’Kantu had the Hom-Dai performed on him,” Darcy said. She gave Michaels a side glance before quickly saying, “He was somehow involved with astronomy and was close enough to betray the pharaoh.”

“N’Kantu was involved in dark magic learned from study of the Book of the Dead and other pursuits that we never fully learned of. He did betray Seti and was consequently cursed with the Hom-Dai. Now that he has been raised he is regaining his grasp of his powers, along with whatever his time spent in a half death has taught him.”

Bucky evenly stared at Sam. “If you can’t know what powers he has at his disposal, dealing with N’Kantu may be a bit difficult, particularly without an apparent plan.”

“For the present, suffice it to say again that N’Kantu will be dealt with.”

“You’ll have to understand if that’s not taken as the most comforting response of the hour,” Darcy said after a moment’s pause, “Given that plans are generally useful when it comes to accomplishing anything worthwhile.”

Sam gave a tight, almost tired smile. “You still have yet to hear what N’Kantu’s desires are and how your friend works into his trying to achieve them.”

Darcy nervously wrung her hands. “Somehow that is not helping me feel any more positive about this situation.”

Behind her Gaines peeked back into the room and took a large breath before moving closer to Michaels and the man from the armoire.

“What does N’Kantu want to bring about?” Bucky asked, giving Sam a suspicious sideways look.

“His betrayal of Seti came about due to his having fallen in love with Seti’s mistress,” he started to explain after narrowly holding back a sigh, “They were careless and were discovered, and made the decision to kill him. While N’Kantu escaped for the crime, she was accordingly punished for the assassination and he vowed to resurrect her. The Medjai stopped N’Kantu and he was cursed with the Hom-Dai. He still intends to keep his vow, and will use your friend as a proxy.”

She almost didn’t want to know, but Darcy had to ask for verification of her thought process. “In Hamunaptra?”

“If it would help to settle your mind, returning to the city after N’Kantu would be a primary action to take if you intend to personally go after your friend.”

“Of course I’m going to follow after Jane!”

“For your reckoning, N’Kantu will not head directly towards Hamunaptra.”

Sam focused on Bucky. “And what brings you to say that?”

He roughly gestured towards the man from the armoire, Michaels, and Gaines. “I imagine N’Kantu will want his full strength before performing such a ritual, and by the curse he would still need their lives before he is restored.”

Gaines gulped at the reminder and nervously looked around, as if expecting N’Kantu to suddenly appear in the room.

“That does prolong our available time.” Sam’s forehead creased. “I will need to contact my fellow Medjai, but we can begin to plan around his need for their lives.”

“I’m not certain that I like the sound of that-,” Michaels began to say.

Darcy quickly cut him off, physically holding her arm out to show him to stop talking. “We are not letting Jane be used in some ritual! If we need you three to bait N’Kantu and do whatever it takes to stop him, we will! We didn’t have to help you out of Hamunaptra or help to protect you, so at the very least you could make yourselves useful in this situation, instead of the heart of the problem!”

Out of her sight, Bucky subtly covered a smile behind one hand.

“I would imagine that N’Kantu can loosely sense their presence, and could likely be baited given the right conditions.” Sam took a moment to look out the window, where the fireballs were mostly subsided. “How long we may have to arrange ourselves before he finds them I cannot guess though.”

“We need someplace we can better defend,” Bucky said as he dropped his smile.

“A shotgun will not be enough to defeat N’Kantu.”

Bucky gave Sam a sharp reply. “Should be enough to slow him down a bit.”

“Should something from the book be able to stop him?” Darcy asked, “I haven’t looked to see if Jane’s bag is still here yet but unless if he needs the book-.” She stopped for a moment of thought before continuing, “What book did we read from to raise him?”

“The Book of the Dead,” Sam solemnly said, “and I would be surprised if he did not already take it.”

“So we need the Book of the Living to bring him back into death,” she thought aloud.

Bucky took his own glance out the window. “Where can we find that?”

“The Book of Amun-Ra is supposed to still be in Hamunaptra, buried underneath a statue, though off the top of my head I am unsure which one.”

Michaels gave a bitter laugh. “We already found the Book of the Dead under a statue of Anubis and there aren’t that many alternative possibilities. It shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Getting back to Hamunaptra may be. N’Kantu can use his powers to move faster, though whether that includes other people I’m not sure we know.” Darcy went for her bag as she spoke, pulling it on before moving to stand beside Bucky.

They both looked at Sam.

He stood. “Take everything you need. It is safest if we all stay together, and I need to briefly discuss the situation with some fellow Medjai in the city. They should be able to help us arrange a quicker way back to Hamunaptra.”

“What if the mummy does find us before then?” the man from the armoire asked, fear evident in his voice.

“We fend him off.”

Unsure how to reply to Sam’s flat statement, the men started to rush to gather their things, Bucky and Darcy slower to grab their last few items.

“Jane must have her bag,” she murmured as an aside to Bucky after he followed her into the side room.

“Does she have the quadrant?”

“That should still be in my bag.” Despite her confidence, Darcy took a moment to check, giving an unconscious relieved sigh when her hand closed around the quadrant. “At least that’s still here.”

After a moment’s hesitation Bucky put his hand on her shoulder. “We will make sure Jane is fine and that N’Kantu is returned to his death.”

She slightly leaned into the touch. “I know, but if somehow something should go wrong…” Her expression fully showed her worry. “I need Jane to be okay.”

“Between your determination and this Book of the Living, we will save Jane,” he promised.

Sam quietly came up from behind them. “I think it may be best to inform you that our first destination will be to see Natasha Romanoff.” He didn’t so much as blink as Bucky and Darcy semi-awkwardly took a step apart from each other to give room to turn towards him. “As I am assuming she has not told you about her being a close associate of the Medjai.”

Both their eyes slightly widened, first in shock, then in the beginnings of understanding.

“She never did mention that,” Bucky flatly stated.

The three men from the other group had come back together in the main room, prompting Darcy, Sam, and Bucky to rejoin them.

“We must make haste,” Sam reminded as he proceeded towards the door.

“We weren’t planning on doing otherwise,” Gaines muttered beneath his breath.

Whether Sam looked back to check that everyone was following or whether he had actually heard the comment, he didn’t specify.

\--

“Well, that is quite the situation.” Natasha had a small glitter in her eyes as she looked at Sam. “I would have thought you would have been lurking nearby to keep any trouble from brewing.”

“I would have thought you were aware of the other situation.”

She leaned back in her chair with a casual shrug. “Perhaps I should have given you more notice about my helping a friend, but at any rate I can help to keep this situation from worsening. Unfortunately I have some business that requires my staying here, but Clint can fly our plane for you to Hamunaptra. It ought to surprise N’Kantu, if nothing else.”

“When can he be ready?” the man from the armoire asked.

“He already started prepping the plane.”

The three men rose.

“If there’s anything we can help him with…”

“We’ll be outside to check,” Gaines finished, edging towards the door as he spoke.

Natasha was silent until after they left, at which point she specifically turned to Darcy, her expression softer. “I wish I could help Jane alongside you, but that I will have to trust entirely to the three of you. Before you leave, is there anything I could at least provide you with?”

Bucky nodded after a moment of thought. “If you have any extra shotguns around, we could use further arming.”

“That I can easily provide.” Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “Did you really imagine I wouldn’t have several to spare?”

“How many assorted items do you have stocked?” Darcy curiously asked while Bucky and Sam struggled to hold back a laugh at Natasha’s comment.

“When you come back I can start to show you.” She glanced over to Bucky. “And you know you can grab those shotguns on your own.”

“Got something to tell Clint?” Bucky said with a hint of teasing.

She gave a casual shrug before rising from her seat. “We all have time sensitive business to take care of before Hamunaptra.”

Unconscious of her reaction, Darcy’s mouth formed a small ‘o.’

“Clint is plenty capable,” Sam wryly said, noting Darcy’s expression out of his peripheral vision.

Natasha had already started towards the door. “All the same we understand the danger.”

No one said anything as she left, although Bucky only waited for a few seconds before standing himself. “Either of you opposed to having a shotgun?”

“Not so long as we can still travel light enough.” Darcy was quick to follow Bucky’s actions towards the door, Sam joining them after another second.

They made some small talk on the way to grabbing shotguns and stocking as much ammunition as they could feasibly carry, but were largely silent and, by the time they were standing outside waiting for the plane to be ready, almost somber. If it unnerved the other three men they didn’t show it, only taking the time to cautiously glance around as a small wind blew past.

Clint was making a final check and broke into a grin as Natasha quietly told him something before half turning to gesture the others towards the plane. “Let’s load her up then, we should be ready to go.” He waited for everyone to be mostly loaded before brushing his hand past Natasha’s as she started to step back from the plane.

“Fly safe,” she murmured.

“What’s the worst a mummy can do?” Clint brightly replied, turning serious as Natasha frowned at him. “I can promise to fly them all safely to Hamunaptra and to keep myself safe. Miss Foster will return with the group too.”

“Mister Barton?” Gaines pointedly asked, looking out the side of the plane.

Natasha stepped backwards. “You need as much time as you can manage ahead of N’Kantu.”

“Yes ma’am.” Clint offered her a somewhat cheeky grin as he hopped up into the cockpit, offering her a wave as she gave the plane more distance before focusing on starting the plane.

As they went airborne the man from the armoire slightly paled.

“Scared of heights?”

He quickly nodded at Bucky, his expression tight in concentration.

Michaels clapped a supportive hand on his shoulder. “Hamunaptra is only so far.” He laughed as the other man gulped. “You will survive.”

“I’m certain,” the man glumly said.

Darcy craned around to look over the side of the plane and as she turned back to face the interior she accidentally put her hand on top of Bucky’s beside her. A small blush crept over her cheeks as she quickly started to pull it back.

“I don’t mind,” he said low enough for only Darcy to hear, gently grabbing her hand back to let their clasped hands rest between them. “Unless if you-?”

She shook her head. “I don’t mind either.” A small smile slipped across her expression, only for her to swallow in an attempt to hide it from the others.

Ignorant of the exchange, Gaines interrupted, “Mister Barnes, there may be a trap in place around accessing the Book of the Living.”

“That I may be able to directly assist with,” Sam cut in to say, “The Medjai are aware of many of the secrets of the city and what it holds.”

The man from the armoire asked Sam to elaborate. He obliged with vague details as they kept on flying, only interrupted when Clint yelled back to them. “We may have met some trouble!”

Everyone immediately turned to look over the sides of the plane and ahead of them. A swirling tornado of sand caught in an unnatural wind was on the horizon, coming closer and seeming to widen as it did so.

“Oh no.”

“Can we evade it?” Still holding Darcy’s hand, Bucky awkwardly hovered between sitting and standing as best he could manage.

“Veer whichever direction takes us the least distance from Hamunaptra!” Sam yelled at Clint.

“I’m the pilot!” he muttered while starting to try to work around the approaching sand tornado.

The man from the armoire looked as though he were going to vomit and firmly gripped at his seat, his knuckles gone white.

Darcy kept her gaze set on the sand tornado and inadvertently squeezed Bucky’s hand, her grip tight. “Can we outrun it?” she loudly asked. A second later her grip somewhat loosened on his hand as the plane jerked to one side, nearly causing her to fall off her seat.

“My apologies!” Clint glared at the sand tornado. “Could be a rough ride from here!”

Bucky started to answer Darcy’s question. “This is clearly N’Kantu’s doing from the wind it’s traveling on. Trusting in Clint and luck is our only option.”

As he had spoken the sand tornado had come far closer to the plane.

Careful to keep his footing, Sam moved closer to the cockpit to lean over Clint’s shoulder without being a distraction. “Without the three his power is still lessened, so while this is a concerning threat I would imagine it should be possible for you to evade or outrun it at some point!”

“Samuel, allow me to concentrate!”

“Exercise caution,” Sam quietly said, not moving from his position.

Thanks to Clint’s flying instincts, they managed to avoid the worst of the sand tornado and only were slightly thrown about by small winds from it.

“It’s doubling back on us!” Michaels started to cry out in alarm, “It- oh?”

“His powers are still limited,” Darcy said in some relief.

“Still, we do not know how close he has already gotten to Hamunaptra, or whether he is directly chasing after us,” Bucky said.

Sam started to head back for his former seat. “We are close to the city.”

“Thank goodness,” Gaines sighed.

Despite everyone’s relief at not having gone down to the sand tornado, the rest of the ride to Hamunaptra was tense in half anticipation of another attack from N’Kantu.

Clint brought the plane down within a short walking distance of the start of the city’s ruins.

“Welcome again to Hamunaptra.”


	7. Comeuppance

“If it’s not too inconvenient, there had been brief discussion over potentially bringing a few other individuals here to help, though I will not know if they have been reached or even agreed to help until I return to the city,” Clint continued, “but I will hurry back for a return trip either way.”

Bucky nodded and shook Clint’s hand before stepping off the plane, the others having already gotten off themselves. “Hopefully we’ve got N’Kantu’s attention here so you can fly without incident.”

“With those three,” Clint quietly said, jerking his chin towards the men from the other group, “I would worry about yourselves rather than me.”

“We’ll try not to need those other Medjai I’m guessing you’re bringing back.”

Clint grinned. “I did say I would not know if they agree to come or even know about the situation,” he called after Bucky as he stepped back from the plane.

He waved before moving close to Darcy’s side as they all gave the plane more room, starting into Hamunaptra proper.

“Is he going to be alright flying away from the city?” Michaels asked with some concern, looking over his shoulder as he spoke.

“Clint is plenty familiar with flying. I would trust in his ability to handle himself,” Sam said while he watched the plane take off. “Our thoughts should be in identifying under which statue the Book of Amun-Ra lies and delaying and stopping N’Kantu upon his arrival.”

Gaines and the man from the armoire cast suspicious looks in all directions and hurried their speed towards one of the building entrances.

For his part, Michaels also looked nervous upon the mention of N’Kantu but maintained a less obvious air as he steadily pointed towards a statue to the northwest of their position. “The other book was found under there.”

“We didn’t look to the south,” Gaines tacked on, already starting to walk towards a statue in that direction.

Sam gave an approving nod. “Horus. I believe so.”

“We don’t have any time to spare,” Darcy hurriedly said, moving past Bucky towards the statue, her shotgun carefully positioned on her back.

He followed closely and kept his at the near ready.

Darcy and Bucky became the lead of the group with Sam sticking to the back as they crossed into an entrance nearest the statue. Michaels and Gaines worried about fumbling to light a couple torches for several moments before the group could proceed any further inside.

Sam twisted to scan the landscape as Gaines’ torch flickered in a rising wind. “We must hurry,” he said while turning back towards the inside, “before too many complications can arise.”

“How well do you know the area?” Darcy called back to Sam.

She was only partially illuminated by the torchlight, but there was enough for Bucky to clearly see the tight set to her jaw.

“Well enough to direct us,” Sam replied as he positioned his shotgun to be at the ready.

Gaines nervously gulped as his torch again flickered. “There’s no point in staying here! What we need is inside!”

Without another word everyone began to hurry down the entrance path, Sam providing quick directions along the way. He and Darcy were the only two focusing more intently on the path ahead rather than looking around and over their shoulders consistently.

Bucky had a prickling sensation along the back of his neck and defensively raised his shotgun a touch higher.

“I think we would know if he were too close,” Darcy whispered, quiet enough for only him to hear.

“He is going to cause us further issues soon enough regardless of where he is now,” Bucky murmured back, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

She briefly brushed her hand against his. “I think between us all we can manage whatever N’Kantu attempts to throw at us. We are going to stop him and help Jane.”

“If things do turn to the worse-.”

“We turn right up ahead,” Sam said, unaware of how he was interrupting.

Darcy cast Bucky a curious look but didn’t say anything more as they veered towards the right passageway, Michaels coming several steps closer behind them.

“This sure is taking longer than I would have thought,” the man from the armoire muttered with a touch of grumpiness evident in his voice. He stopped to look in the direction from which they had come, letting Sam approach before he started down the passageway too. Louder, the man asked, “Are you absolutely certain you know the way? You couldn’t even remember what statue we were supposed to look for originally and we do not have spare time to give.”

“If you would prefer to guide yourself you may feel free to do so. It is only your life that I am helping to protect,” Sam drily said. He evenly stared at the man from the armoire until his shoulders guiltily dipped forward.

Bucky and Darcy exchanged a look only to jump in near unison as Gaines gasped behind them.

“Is that pure gold?” The focus of his awe were several wall decorations that were fashioned like scarabs. He leaned in close to the wall and held the torch high to better look at them before slowly starting to reach out to grab one.

“I wouldn’t try it with the powers at hand in this place,” Bucky warned.

Darcy nodded. “We have already seen the problems a scarab can pose and given N’Kantu this may not be the place to check out the decorations.”

Gaines’ cheeks went a bright red as he withdrew his hand and lowered the torch. “Oh. Yes. Of course.” He stepped away from the wall and began to hurriedly proceed further down the passageway.

“We should be approaching the room underneath the statue.”

They all stopped as a mixture of groaning and shrieking started echoing off the walls, seeming to come closer as they listened for several moments.

Sam continued, “Running may not hurt about now.”

No one needed any further prompting and took off, relieved when they saw the base of the statue.

“Everyone without a shotgun get started on prying that open!” Darcy ordered as Bucky and Sam took on defensive positions by the entrance they had all just come through. She lifted her shotgun into a better grip and turned opposite of Sam and Bucky to take in the other side of the room. “We have two entrances!” She ran towards it and paused to listen before calling back over her shoulder, “I don’t think anything is coming from this direction!”

“Yet.” Bucky took a half step backwards to glance towards her side, keeping his shotgun pointed out his entrance. “Scream if you need anything.”

She smiled for a moment before checking on how the others were doing on opening the compartment that was supposed to contain the Book of the Living. As she watched the man from the armoire and Gaines successfully tugged it open, after which Michaels squatted and reached in the compartment to pull out what appeared to be a wooden box.

“I think we have it!” As Michaels spoke, Gaines helped him pull the lid off the box. They both inadvertently sighed upon seeing that the object inside was wrapped in a thin cloth, but quickly moved the cloth aside.

Gaines held it up. “We have the book!” He cringed a second later as he realized the groaning and shrieking was much closer.

Sam fired at what appeared to be a partial mummy moving in a roughly shambling motion and that was one source of the groaning and shrieking. “N’Kantu’s priests,” he grimly declared, primarily to Bucky as he also began to fire at the several approaching priests.

Darcy had instinctively spun around at the first shot.

“It’s the book!” Gaines repeated for her.

“Keep that-.” She stopped and screamed in surprise as the man from the armoire drew a knife and stabbed Gaines in the back. “Don’t!”

He stabbed Gaines again and slashed at Michaels’ stomach as he started to hastily back away.

Michaels groaned and clutched at his midsection, unable to keep blood from appearing through his fingers.

At Darcy’s scream Bucky had started to turn towards her and took in the scene as best he could while simultaneously shooting at the priests. “What are you doing?” he yelled.

“Stop!” Darcy exclaimed, pointing her shotgun towards the man from the armoire and finding herself unable to keep it perfectly steady.

He looked her directly in the eye. “I have to,” he whispered, “I have to.”

Somehow Gaines found the strength to toss the book part of the way towards Darcy, making a pained cry as he did so. Tears gathered in his eyes as he started to curl up into the fetal position and he could only give a groan of his own as the man from the armoire tried to stab at his stomach.

Sam made a frustrated sound as he and Bucky started to back away from their entrance to get into the center of the room.

Darcy shifted the shotgun back onto her shoulder and quickly picked up the book before rushing towards the man from the armoire and hitting the side of his head with it. He stumbled to the side and fell to one knee.

“You need to leave… stop N’Kantu,” Michaels weakly said.

“No.” She shook her head as if to add onto her point. “I am not about to support abandoning the two of you, if we hurry we might still be able to help-.”

Michaels repeated himself but was somewhat overshadowed by Sam speaking at the same time. “Under these circumstances I am not entirely certain there is anything we can do for them.” His voice was tinged with solemn sadness.

“What possessed you to attack them?” Darcy yelled at the man from the armoire as she took a half step towards him. She held the Book of the Living tucked under one arm towards her.

He shakily stood and stared at the approaching priests. “N’Kantu promised me I could be by his side if I made sure the others died!”

Bucky bitterly scoffed. “Curses do not have exceptions!”

The man held out his arms towards the priests. “I did as N’Kantu asked!”

For a moment the priests focused on shuffling in the direction of the man from the armoire rather than trying to get at Sam or Bucky.

He reached for Darcy’s hand and started to pull her towards the other entrance, Sam only a step behind him. “We need to leave.” He half expected protest from her, but Darcy kept pace with him, unaware of the tear sliding down her cheek.

“We will need to find somewhere where N’Kantu or his minions will not attempt to attack us in order to read from the book and find the proper section to release him back into death.” Sam was facing the statue room as they hurried down the path, keeping his shotgun at the ready.

“Where is he most likely to be?”

Bucky squeezed her hand as the man from the armoire’s panicked screaming carried to them. “You sure you want to directly- oh.” He stopped as Darcy awkwardly maneuvered the book around to show him its cover.

“He has the key, and if he’s restored to his full power since the others… died, Jane is completely unsafe with N’Kantu.”

“Barnes, watch for any who follow us, I’ll lead towards the primary chamber.” Sam made no comment about Bucky and Darcy breaking their grip after a half second’s hesitation.

The shrieking and groaning did not seem to be directly following them. There was no need for anyone to ask the others why, knowing that the priests were momentarily focused on finishing off Michaels and Gaines along with the man from the armoire.

“Wilson, what can we expect from N’Kantu?” Bucky called towards Sam as they moved, “We need a basic plan of attack if nothing else before we go in there.”

He nodded. “I agree, and I am not entirely certain of the full extent of N’Kantu’s powers at this point, but he will be far more capable of defending against us and summoning assistance. The priests and whatever else he may call for will not tire like we will and I suspect that neither will he.”

Darcy sighed to herself. “This situation continues to grow worse and worse,” she muttered.

“A diversion may be our best chance for at least separating N’Kantu and Jane,” Bucky said.

“We still need the key before we can open the book too.” Darcy again lifted the book up to emphasize her point.

Sam led them around a turn before continuing the conversation. “Until we see the setup within the main chamber we can only plan on starting a diversion and will have to act according to need once actually inside.”

Given the distance they had put between themselves and the priests, it was difficult to tell if the distant shrieking and groaning was imagined or if the priests had finally decided to follow after them.

“How close are we to the main chamber now?”

“Very close.” Sam barely took a breath before starting to lay out their plan. “Barnes and I can take the primary entrance and create a diversion. Miss Lewis, after the next right turn we should be close to the entrance and if you would want to come in from the side you would go to the right of the doors and follow that path to another entry.”

“Would N’Kantu expect it?”

Sam looked over his shoulder so that Darcy could see his small smile. “The Medjai have done our best to create some of our own paths through Hamunaptra to fit any predicted needs. He will be unaware of the path’s existence.”

Bucky hesitated for a second before asking Darcy, “Are you certain you want to go in alone?”

“I won’t be alone.” She absentmindedly brushed a section of hair back behind her ear. “We’ll just be meeting in the middle.”

He tightly smiled. “It probably doesn’t need repeating, but I’ll say it again-.”

Darcy cut him off. “Scream if I need anything?”

“That’s the idea.”

“If that’s all settled I will meet you in the middle in a matter of moments.” Darcy pointedly started to walk down the side path.

Sam held back another smile as Bucky turned back towards the main entrance.

“You ready?” Bucky wryly asked.

“I am the one who came up with this plan.” Sam stepped closer to the entrance. “Are you ready?”

“We’re about to fight a mummy with supernatural powers. If I’m supposed to be ready as though this is a normal fight I must have been doing something wrong all this time.”

Sam chuckled. “She should be about to the entrance, so on the count of three.” He waited for Bucky to nod at him before continuing. “One, two, THREE!”

They pushed the doors open in unison and burst through with their respective shotguns held at the ready.

N’Kantu looked up at the sound of the doors and stared at Sam and Bucky for a moment before his brow creased and he frowned at them. Before they could do anything more N’Kantu barked an order to the handful of priests that were also in the room and they started to advance towards Sam and Bucky.

From her spot on the room’s ceremonial altar, Jane attempted to crane her head up to see what all was happening, struggling against several ties as she did so.

Bucky took the first shot against one of the priests, sending parts of its midsection flying. The priest stopped for a second before continuing to move closer with the others.

“It will take some work to bring them down,” Sam lightly commented as he fired at another one’s shoulder.

“I think we can manage.”

At the sound of the shots, Darcy came in from the side and paused midstep to take in the scene. N’Kantu had somewhat followed after the priests and didn’t notice her coming in.

She carefully hurried towards Jane, making sure to avoid the mummified body that was to Jane’s left, and started to undo the ties. “I think N’Kantu is starting to notice us and these things are not coming off very easily,” she muttered with some frustration.

Once she had one hand free Jane leaned up to help Darcy in undoing the ties. “The questions can wait.” She looked over her shoulder to see N’Kantu moving back towards them. “What’s your plan for getting out of here though?”

“Distraction, rescue, escape safely.”

Jane quickly scrambled off the altar away from N’Kantu to stand behind Darcy, who aimed her shotgun towards him while taking a cautious step back.

“You do not understand the gravity of what you are interrupting,” N’Kantu slowly started to say.

“Maybe so, but I’m not going to let you kill Jane.” Darcy shot at his midsection and almost immediately afterwards started to back away a few steps more, Jane moving with her. “I put the book that we need to get rid of him in my bag if you would grab it,” she whispered to her friend.

Jane hastily opened Darcy’s bag and pulled out the Book of the Living. “We need that sun key again.”

“I’ll distract him, you see if you can get it.”

“Are you su-?”

Darcy nodded. “We don’t have too many options as is.”

“Be careful,” Jane murmured as she briefly put one hand on Darcy’s shoulder.

N’Kantu had been relatively still for several moments as the flesh around the area Darcy had shot regrew. Once the hole was filled in he started to stride after Darcy and Jane.

“If you run into trouble just scream. Now give me a second to give you the opportunity to break away,” Darcy murmured back to Jane before swallowing and adjusting her grip on the shotgun before reaching back into her bag. She lifted the quadrant and waved it around for N’Kantu to see before loudly saying, “Do you want this too?”

He frowned at her. “That does belong to me, and you certainly do not comprehend what that quadrant can be used for.”

Jane perked up, several questions jumping immediately to mind before she shook herself out of her curiosity and focused back on the situation at hand.

“If you want it, you can try to come and take it.” Darcy waggled the quadrant before darting in the opposite direction of the altar as N’Kantu raised one hand, prompting a couple priests to break off from fighting Sam and Bucky to chase after her.

Bucky had followed the direction the priests were shambling off in and his brow furrowed as he noticed Darcy moving along further into the room with the quadrant held up.

“We need to stop N’Kantu to stop these priests!” Sam warned in between shots.

Jane was creeping up towards the altar, where N’Kantu had put the Book of the Dead down beside the mummified body when the others had come in. The key was still inside its cover.

She grimaced while reaching across the body to grab the key and made sure to avoid coming into physical contact with it.

A hand grabbed Jane’s shoulder and she almost stumbled as she was pulled backwards.

“Keep her there,” N’Kantu ordered the priest who had a grip on Jane before continuing to come after Darcy, who had stuck the quadrant back in her bag so that she could use the shotgun.

“Jane!” Darcy cried out with only a glance in her direction before she shot at the head of one of the priests that were after her.

The priest tried to grab her other shoulder and stared at its hand in surprise when she jerked out of its grip and put both the key and the Book of the Living on the nearest side of the altar. Jane jumped to grab the large ceremonial knife that had been by the Book of the Dead and, with it in hand, quickly twisted around to stab at the priest.

It groaned as she stabbed its chest and managed to grab at her wrist. Jane leaned back against the altar and used her position to kick at its midsection before slashing its arm off at the elbow.

As another priest came up to help the first, she defensively held the knife, pointing it towards both priests as they cornered her against the side of the altar.

The head of the second priest exploded and Bucky used the body of his shotgun to hit the first priest behind the knees. It fell onto its back. Before it could right itself he forcefully kicked at its head, sending it flying beyond the other side of the altar.

“Good work with the knife,” he said while quickly moving to properly hold the shotgun for shooting again.

“Thanks for stepping in to help.”

“We are here to rescue you.”

With the priests being stopped, N’Kantu turned his focus away from Darcy and back to Jane.

She scrambled back for the book and the key, sticking it inside the indentation on the cover and twisting to open the book.

“Stop them!” N’Kantu yelled.

Darcy gave a small exclamation as a door opened from behind her and several seemingly partially mummified bodies started marching out, each armed with a shield and khopesh. She started to hurry back towards the vicinity of the altar, her path cleared of priests and N’Kantu for the present.

“Find what you need to read!” she called to Jane as she hurried over, “We need to stop him quickly!”

Sam had also worked through the priests and came over to help cover Jane. “Hurry.”

She took a second to give him something of a glare as she flipped through the book. “This isn’t something effortless! I need some time!”

The others all were firing off shots towards the approaching mummies. Some of the shots connected with bone and tissue remnants, while others were blocked by the shields.

“He is rather powerful against us!” Darcy commented to Jane as she came even with Bucky behind the altar.

Bucky shot the head of one of the mummies, leading to its haphazardly stumbling into its fellow mummies while swinging its khopesh.

Sam gave a small noise of approval. “Not a bad shot.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve got it!” Jane proudly said a second later before starting to read out of the book.

N’Kantu screamed in frustration and tried to push aside the mummies to get to the altar. “No! Stop them!”

Jane triumphantly read the last of the appropriate section and couldn’t help but grin as the mummies stopped their approach. N’Kantu’s eyes widened and he hurriedly twisted to look over his shoulder.

They all had to look away from a sudden bright light. When they could again see, the mummies had vanished and N’Kantu had fallen to his hands and knees. He groaned and made his way back up to a standing position, swaying as he moved towards the altar.

“Give me that book,” he tried to order.

Darcy shot at his chest.

With one last pained cry N’Kantu’s body started to decompose before their eyes. He completely collapsed into nothingness after several moments.

Sam was the first to speak. “We need to leave.”

Jane put the Book of the Living in Darcy’s bag before grabbing the Book of the Dead. She couldn’t keep from shuddering at the body that still lay on the one side of the altar. “I think we have seen enough of Hamunaptra.”

Darcy instinctively jumped towards Bucky as the ground shook. “We should leave _quickly_ ,” she pointedly said while nervously eyeing the ceiling.

Before she could finish speaking they all were moving towards the exit, Sam leading the way.

The ground shook more heavily as they headed aboveground and a mixture of dirt and dust started to fall onto them. Midway through the passage they all broke into a run and continued running past the edge of Hamunaptra before stopping and turning to watch the city crumble in a rising cloud of dust and debris.

“Good riddance,” Jane muttered as she watched the cloud.

Bucky put his shotgun on his back before holding Darcy’s hand as she moved in towards him, her own shotgun held loosely downward.

“That was an adventure,” she murmured, shutting her eyes as she leaned into his shoulder.

He wrapped his other arm around her waist and rested his head against hers. “To say the least.”

“It seems we came a little late,” Clint said with a chuckle from behind them. “And here I thought we might be able to spend some time fighting.”

A couple broad-shouldered individuals were standing with Clint.

Sam smiled and walked forward to greet them. “It would have made a good story, but I suppose we will have to accept that I am the one able to tell it.”

While one of the individuals replied to Sam, Darcy let go of Bucky’s hand and shouldered her shotgun before enthusiastically pulling Jane into a hug. “I was so worried about you!”

Jane patted Darcy’s shoulder as she hugged back with one arm, careful of the shotgun. She still held the Book of the Dead with her other arm. “I don’t know that I can say thank you enough for saving my life.” She looked over at Bucky and Sam. “All of you.”

“I did sign up to help the two of you safely travel to and from Hamunaptra,” Bucky lightly said.

Clint loudly cleared his throat. “Unless if you particularly want to remain standing outside the city ruins to watch this cloud clear, I would personally suggest continuing your conversation in the plane.”

\--

They were bustling around with several items on the roof of the building, setting up for one of the many tests Jane was running with the quadrant.

“Did you figure out what to do because of what’s his name? Thor, isn’t it?” Darcy teased before dancing back out of Jane’s reach as the other woman tried to hit her shoulder.

“My research and findings coupled with his insight, thank you very much.” Jane quickly refocused from Darcy to fiddling with the quadrant. “We’re on the brink of a spectacular discovery, if I can only figure exactly how to get it to shine.”

“Unlocking the secrets of the heavens, here we come.”

Jane hummed in answer and consulted her notes before adjusting one last thing on the quadrant and holding her breath. After less than a second a blue light shot out from the quadrant and up into the night sky as a beam.

She gasped and looked back to her notes before looking at something on the quadrant. “It’s the beginning of a bridge! It works!” she happily told Darcy.

Before Darcy could reply Bucky walked up onto the roof with several cups of tea, which he set beside Jane. “You figured it out!”

“She is amazing,” Darcy said as she waltzed to his side and stuck her arm through his.

Jane absentmindedly nodded in their direction while scribbling down notes and looking up at the beam.

With a tongue touched smile Darcy leaned further into Bucky.

He hugged her a touch closer. “So are you, you know.”

“You too.” She leaned up into a quick kiss before putting her hands against his chest. “And I should at least help Jane for a few more minutes, since this is quite the notable discovery.”

Bucky pressed a kiss to her forehead before letting go of her waist. “I won’t be going anywhere.”

“I know,” Darcy said with a wink before returning to Jane’s side. She was careful to make sure her shadow didn’t fall across Jane’s notes as she read over her shoulder.  
While she read Jane started to talk to her about her ideas for strengthening and consequently stabilizing the beam.

Bucky smiled as he sat down behind them with one of the tea cups in hand. Danger and all, he did not regret accompanying Jane and Darcy to Hamunaptra in the least. 

Even if they would have wished for less mummies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thank you all for your comments/kudos/views, it really has been so much fun working on this AU and seeing that I wasn't the only one interested in the idea!


End file.
